


There's No Handbook for the Rest of Your Life

by Callie



Series: Farm AU [1]
Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/M, Oregon - Freeform, farm, single parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-30 00:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 55,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callie/pseuds/Callie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate universe that explores what Will McAvoy might have been like if his life was a little different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/gifts).



When Mr. MacKenzie from the farm down the road passes away in mid-summer, Will doesn't go to the funeral, even though he'd liked the man quite a bit. Will hasn't been to a funeral in four years. He doesn't go and neither does his daughter, but he sends some flowers to the church and later that week, he goes by the house to see if any of the men that work on the MacKenzie farm need anything.

He's been to the MacKenzie farm enough over the years that he knows it well, and knows the people well, so he's surprised to see someone unfamiliar emerge from the front door as he pulls up in his truck. She's tall and long-legged, with her brown hair twisted into a messy knot with a pencil stuck through it and a pair of black-framed glasses perched on her nose, and somehow he thinks he knows her even though he's fairly sure he's never seen her before.

"Hello," he says, sliding out of the truck and leaning against it. "I"m Will McAvoy, from the farm up the road."

"I know," she says, smiling. She slides off the glasses and tucks them into her shirt pocket. "I'm MacKenzie McHale, John MacKenzie's granddaughter."

It's the accent that places her in Will's memory before she finishes her sentence; round English vowels that remind Will of the little girl who used to--"You used to visit your grandfather in the summers," he says, as it dawns on him. "You had a crush on my little brother-- you used to chase him around the barn and stuff hay down his shirt and push him in the water trough."

MacKenzie's smile deepens and her eyes crinkle a little at the corners. "That's me," she admits. "I wasn't sure you'd remember."

"I'm a little slow, sometimes."

"It's been a while. I wasn't able to visit as often as I'd like in the last several years, with work and other commitments."

Will nods, understanding. "I'm sorry for your loss," he says. "Your grandfather was a good man. A good neighbor. He'll be missed."

"Yes, he will." MacKenzie slips the glasses from her pocket, twiddling them between her fingers, but doesn't put them on again. "Would you like to come inside?"

"I don't want to interrupt anything," Will says. "I just stopped by to see how things were going."

"You're not interrupting, trust me," MacKenzie says. She turns and walks in the direction of the house and Will's compelled to follow or bring the conversation to an abrupt end. He chooses to follow. "I was answering emails from work. I'd taken a leave of absence to come out and deal with my grandfather's affairs, but it seems that one can leave work, but not really leave work behind."

Will catches the front door and opens it for her; she seems surprised by this, but allows it. "What do you do?" he asks, and follows her into the kitchen, where she fills the coffeemaker with water and measures out coffee from a little metal canister. John MacKenzie's house had always been sparse and neat; it still is, though there is evidence of MacKenzie's presence in the pile of newspapers and cluster of electronic gadgets strewn across the kitchen table.

"I'm the executive producer for one of ACN's evening news shows out of New York," she says. " _Right Now_ , with Elliot Hirsch."

"I've seen it."

"Have you?" She seems pleased by this. "It's been going for about a year now. It's a moderate success, but I think he'd have better numbers at eight than at ten. I'm also writing a book about the rise of the Tea Party and their influence on American politics." She gives him a thoughtful look. "You wouldn't happen to be a Tea Party supporter, would you?"

"No," Will says, laughing a little. "You won't find many of those out here. Some, but not many, at least not here in the western part of the state. The eastern half, though…" He makes a dismissive gesture. "I'm afraid you won't find much material for your book out here." 

"That's all right," MacKenzie says. "Honestly? I doubt I'll ever finish it. There aren't enough hours in the day, and Right Now keeps me busy enough, as it is.." She takes little glass jars of sugar and creamer from the cabinet and puts them on the table, pushing aside the stacks of newspapers, and when the coffee is brewed, pours for them both into mismatched mugs. "What about you? Have you always been a farmer?"

"No." Will adds sugar to his coffee. "I grew up here. Went to college, then law school, then got a job in Portland as a prosecutor. Lived there until my mother got too old to manage the farm by herself--I was sick of law by then and my wife hated living in the city, so it worked out best for all of us."

"My grandfather mentioned you have a daughter?"

"Emma? She's thirteen," Will says, sighing a little and resting his elbows on the kitchen table. Thirteen-year-old girls had seemed foreign and unchartable territory when _he_ was thirteen, and he's no better at understanding them now than he was then. 

"I'm sorry," MacKenzie says. "I was atrocious at thirteen, a miserable human being. I suppose everyone is, and we eventually we grow out of it. Most of us do, anyway," she amends. 

"I hope so." He's never quite sure exactly what to say to her sometimes, and most of what he knows about her comes from overhearing phone conversations with her friends as he's walking by her room. He doesn't seem to have the knack of talking to her that his wife had. "It's been hard for her since her mom died, and being a teenager and a girl is… I don't know. It's out of my league."

MacKenzie's expression softens a little. "I'm sorry about your wife."

"It's okay." It isn't, even now, and he's not sure it ever will be. Four years, and it still feels like it's never going to be okay. He doesn't want to talk about it at all.

MacKenzie seems to sense this, and doesn't dwell on the topic of his wife. Instead she moves the conversation along, and Will is grateful. "I'd love to meet Emma while I'm here," she says. "I'm here until Thursday, and then I have to go back to New York."

"Come by on Saturday," he says. "I have some appointments in town tomorrow, but you can come by on Saturday and I'll throw something on the grill and you can meet Emma."

*****

Emma, however, is less than thrilled at the idea of spending her Saturday afternoon with someone she doesn't know. "Megan invited me over," she says, frowning, when she finally gets off the phone and Will explains to her that they're having company Saturday. "Her mom said I could spend the night."

"But _I_ haven't given you permission to spend the night," Will counters. "You haven't even asked me yet."

"You didn't let me ask you," Emma says. "I was going to ask you, and then you told me this MacKenzie person was coming over and now I can't go to Megan's. God, I never get to see my friends because it's summer and there's no school and I never get to do anything."

"You're definitely not going to get to do anything, with that attitude," Will snaps, exasperated. "It's not going to kill you to get off the phone for five minutes and meet a family friend. Her grandparents were good friends of this family, she's only going to be here for a few days, and you can hang out with Megan any time."

" _Fine_ ," Emma says. "God, you're so mean."

"Yeah, I know. I'm the worst." Will leaves her in her room and goes downstairs, out onto the wide front porch. Claire had never let him smoke in the house and four years later, he still won't, so the front porch swing is still his default when he needs to get the fuck out of the house for a while and have a cigarette.

Will hates fighting with Emma. Granted, that little exchange was mild compared to some of their shouting matches, but still; he fucking hates it. He hates telling her no, he hates setting rules, and he hates the way she sighs and rolls her eyes at him like he's the most unreasonable person in the world. Then he says passive-aggressive shit to her like _yeah, I'm the worst_ and it doesn't help, but he doesn't know what else to say when she's so determined to be difficult.

He'd never lay a hand on her--God knows he knows what that shit is like and he's not inflicting it on someone else--but he can't stop saying shitty things to her sometimes and he wonders if things would be different if Claire was still with them. Claire had known how to deal with the infant fussiness and the toddler tantrums and her tendencies to bite and kick other kids when she'd gotten to preschool; she'd also dealt with the nightly homework battles starting in first grade and lasting until they'd taken Emma to a specialist who had diagnosed her with a mathematics learning disability that made numbers as difficult for her as words and letters are for a dyslexic. Will was never good at dealing with any of that. He was good at building her a tree house and teaching her to throw a football, but those were the easy things, and Will knows he bails on the hard things but he doesn't know how to do them.

He's just finishing his cigarette and stubbing it out when Emma pushes the front door open. "You shouldn't smoke," she tells him, for the hundredth time, wrinkling her nose. "It's nasty."

"I know," he says. "It's a habit."

Her nosewrinkle turns into a frown but she sits down beside him on the swing anyway, waving away the last remnants of smoke. "It's gross, and you always do it when you're mad." She pulls her feet up under her and leans against him, and Will puts his arm around her shoulder. "When is MacKenzie coming over?"

"Around dinnertime. I was going to grill burgers."

"Can I go to Megan's after? Her mom can pick me up."

"Which one is Megan?" All her friends seem to run together; Will can't remember who is who. He thinks he ought to pay better attention to her friends and know who she's hanging around with. She's thirteen. Before long she'll be wanting to hang out with boys or something and Will _definitely_ needs to know about those.

Emma sighs. "Daddy, you know who Megan is, she's in jazz band with me at school. Please? Her mom will bring me back on Sunday, you won't even have to come get me."

Will can't think of a reason to say no that isn't _because I said so_ and he guesses that's a pretty shitty reason, so he might as well let her go. "Okay, okay," he says. "You can go, but only if you clean your room, and help me with the fence in the upper field tomorrow."

"Thanks, Daddy." Then she kisses his cheek and scurries off upstairs again before he can change his mind.

*****

On Saturday, Will changes clothes four times, not counting changing out of the clothes he'd been wearing to clean out the barn that morning. He trades khakis for jeans and discards those for khakis again, swaps a blue shirt for a green one and then a striped one and finally says _fuck it_ and decides the khakis and the green shirt are good enough.

When he goes downstairs, Emma says, "Daddy, you look like my science teacher," and rolls her eyes. 

"What's wrong with that?" Will wants to know.

"My science teacher is a dork. But what _ever_..."

He's not sure why it matters, or why he cares, but he goes back upstairs and trades the khakis and green shirt for jeans and a blue shirt, and Emma doesn't comment but she doesn't roll her eyes, either, so he guesses he at least doesn't look embarrassing.

When MacKenzie arrives, she's wearing jeans and flat leather sandals and is carrying a box from the organic bakery in town. "I should have asked if I could bring anything," she says, as Will takes the box from her, "but I was in town this morning and I saw a sign that said _The Divine Cupcake_ and I couldn't resist, not with a name like that. I had one already, they're quite good." 

"Oh, cupcakes," Emma says, peeking in the box. "I like that place. Daddy can't bake. When he does, it tastes like rocks."

"Thanks for the support," Will says, sighing. "It's true, I can't bake, but I can grill, so don't worry, you won't starve. Emma, this is MacKenzie, MacKenzie, this is my daughter, Emma."

"How do you do?" MacKenzie responds.

Emma studies her for a moment. "Are you English?"

"Born in England," MacKenzie says, "but I've lived in New York for a long time."

"Okay. I was just wondering, because you have an accent." Emma's phone buzzes in her pocket and she fishes it out and wanders away as she answers it.

"She's thirteen," Will says, grimacing. It's not the rudest Emma's ever been, but it's close. "Would you like a beer?"

"I remember being thirteen, and it's fine," MacKenzie assures him. "And a beer would be lovely."

He gets two beers from the fridge, opening one for her, and they go out onto the deck at the back of the house. It's warm, but not unbearably so, like most Oregon summers are, and half the deck is shaded, which is even better. "I watched _Right Now_ last night," he tells her. "It's a good show. Not that--I mean, you weren't there running it, obviously, because you were here, but I'm sure it's just as good when you're there. Or better."

"Hopefully it's better," she says. "But yes. Thanks for watching. I shouldn't watch when I'm away because I just get frustrated, but I can't help it. I need to know what's going on."

Will lights the grill and closes it to let it get good and hot before he puts the burgers on. "You must be itching to get back."

"I suppose I am." She sips at her beer, then adds, "This has been a nice time away. Not nice in the sense of--it isn't nice that my grandfather died, obviously," she says, "that isn't what I mean, of course. But he had a long and full life and it was all very peaceful and it could have been much worse. The time away from work, spending time in his house and going through his things and remembering the good parts of his life and my childhood summers here, that has been good. It's quite beautiful out here. I'd forgotten how nice it is."

"It's nice _now_ ," Will agrees. "But that's because you're here in the middle of summer. If you were here in January, you wouldn't like it so much. Around mid-October it starts raining and doesn't stop until June." He's exaggerating, but only a little bit.

"I suppose I'll have to come back and see what that's like," MacKenzie says. 

"Oh?" He'd assumed that she would take care of her grandfather's affairs and go back to New York and that would probably be the last they'd see of her.

"Well," she says, "I suppose the easiest thing for me to do would be to sell his farm, but I'm reluctant to sell it because it was my mother's home and I spent a lot of time here as a child, and I don't really want to part with it. I've gone through his books and it seems to be generating enough income to sustain itself, at least for a while, and with the economy the way it is I would probably be selling at a loss if I could sell at all. My grandfather had already hired someone to manage the day to day operations for him when he couldn't do it anymore, and he seems to be doing a good job, so I might as well let things continue on as they are for now."

"Seems like you've given this a lot of thought," Will says.

"I have. I suppose you have a new neighbor, although a mostly absent one?"

Will's inexplicably cheered by this (the fact that he has a new neighbor, not the part about being mostly absent), enough so that when Emma emerges onto the deck only to position herself in a far corner and play with her phone, he can't be too grumpy about it. He goes back into the house to collect everything he needs for the grill, and when he comes back out with utensils in one hand and a plate of hamburger patties in the other, MacKenzie has managed to successfully engage Emma in a conversation about her plans this evening with Megan, a conversation that only minimally involves her phone. 

This is more than Will has managed with his daughter in quite some time.

They have their burgers outside and are just polishing off the cupcakes when Megan and her mother pull up in the driveway. "Bye, Daddy," Emma says, giving him a kiss on the cheek before shoving her phone in her jeans pocket and picking up her bag.

"Behave," he says. "And be back by lunchtime tomrorow!" he adds, as she runs across the yard to the car. Megan's mom waves from the car and Will waves back, feeling like the most inept parent ever.

"She's a beautiful girl, Will," MacKenzie says. 

"She takes after her mother." She's the spitting image of Claire, which only gets more obvious as she gets older.

"Thanks for letting me meet her."

"Sorry she just, you know. Ran off like that."

"It's fine," MacKenzie says. "I mean, I don't know the first thing about kids, I don't have any and my brother's children are back in England and I hardly see them, but I think it's great that she has friends. I was terribly shy at her age and I didn't have many friends. I certainly didn't go to sleepovers very often, though I wanted to."

"You seem to have gotten over your shyness," Will teases, and he's pleased when that earns him an exasperated little smile.

"I did," she says. "You can't be shy in my line of work. Actually, I don't imagine there are many careers that wouldn't have forced me out of shyness, but the news certainly did." 

She stands and starts gathering up the plates and Will is quick to jump up, too. "Oh no," he says, "I didn't invite you over to clean up after us. Sit down, I'll take care of it."

"Don't be stupid," she says. "It's a handful of plates and a few glasses. I don't mind." MacKenzie takes the plates back into the house and Will follows her because he has no choice--it's either follow or argue and something tells him that arguing with MacKenzie over something as dumb as the dishes is pretty futile.

"I'll just rinse them off and put them in the dishwasher," he tells her, "except for the glasses. They don't quite fit in the top rack so I just wash them by hand." Will puts the plates in the washer and MacKenzie fills the sink with water to wash the glasses. "I've got this," he tells her, reaching into the soapy water for a glass.

"Don't be silly," MacKenzie says, "I'm standing right here, I can do it." 

She reaches into the sink at the same time he does and they both come up with their hands around the same glass, and it's only as Will's standing there with soap dripping down his wrist that he realizes there's only a small amount of space between him and the counter and every bit of it is filled by her. It unnerves him a little, because he hasn't been this close to a woman since Claire, and he quickly lets go of the glass and steps back, wiping his hand on his jeans. "I'll just go clean off the grill," he says hastily, and slips out the back door onto the deck.

He doesn't have much time to collect his thoughts, because there were only three glasses for her to wash and he's hardly started on the grill before she comes back out onto the deck again, hand shoved into the pockets of her jeans. "You want to tell me what that weirdness was about back there?" 

Will shrugs and scrubs at the grill grates with a wire brush. "What weirdness?"

"The part where we bumped hands in the sink and you ran off like I bit you?" She leans against the deck railing and watches him attack the grill. "You looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights, and if I did something wrong, I'm sorry."

"You didn't," he says, and scrubs the grill some more. He doesn't elaborate, and MacKenzie doesn't push him for an explanation--but she doesn't say anything else, either, and when the silence starts to get long and thin he stops for a minute and turns to look at her. "I haven't dated anyone since my wife died," he says, finally.

"I didn't realize this was a date," she says.

"Well--no, it wasn't--isn't--it was just, you know--" He gestures with the grill brush and then realizes he's dripping grease or whatever the fuck is on the grill onto his jeans and puts it down. "--neighbors having dinner."

"It's okay if you want it to not just be neighbors having dinner," MacKenzie says, and there's a deliberateness to her words that implies she's thinking, very carefully, about what she's saying. "And it's okay if that's all it is, too. I had a nice time with you tonight, and with Emma, and I'm going back to New York on Thursday, so if we're just part-time neighbors then it's fine and I'm glad I got to know you a little better. But I like you, Will. So if you want to get together again before I go, or next time I'm in town, then I'm okay with that."

"So am I." He closes the lid of the grill and wipes his hands on a towel, then crosses the deck to join her in leaning against the deck railing. "I'm sorry about the weirdness."

"It's okay," she says. "Really. I had a nice time." MacKenzie laughs a little and shrugs, and Will can see a faint flush of pink in her cheeks even though the sun's just dipping behind the trees and the light is growing dim. "Had. Am having. Whatever."

"I know what you mean." There's a part of Will that feels like he shouldn't be enjoying another woman's company as much as he is, and yet he is, and he feels guilty about that, but maybe not as much as he should. (He doesn't know what he's supposed to feel; there's no handbook for living your life after you lose your spouse.) "You know, if it's _having_ a nice time and not _had_ , then you're still technically having a good time and maybe you don't have to leave yet. I mean, unless you want to leave, then obviously that's fine too. God," he says. "I'm really bad at this."

"You are." She says it fondly, though, so maybe he's not doing _that_ badly, though he knows he sounds like an idiot.

"Glad we're agreed."

"We are." 

She looks up at him for a long moment, thoughful and considering, and then leans up on her toes to cup his cheek and kiss him. Will wasn't expecting it, even with the terrible flirting he'd tried to engage in, so when she kisses him he doesn't immediately respond out of surprise and out of it being a long fucking time since he's kissed anyone. For a split second he thinks about that, about the last time he kissed Claire, and that fucking _hurts_ in all kinds of new and unexpected ways, but MacKenzie's kiss is sweet and undemanding and Will lets himself ease into it and enjoy it for what it is. She winds her arms around his neck and presses close and Will's hands come to rest on her hips, keeping her there. 

"I hope this is okay," she murmurs, soft against his mouth, and the gentleness of her voice sends little ripples of desire down his spine. That, too, is something he hasn't felt in a long time. 

"Yeah," he says. "Totally okay."

"Good," MacKenzie says, and rises up to kiss him again, but this time she doesn't surprise him and he's meeting her halfway. He'd forgotten how intimate it is to kiss someone, to be this close to them and share a little of their breath, and he'd also forgotten about that stomach-dropping moment when someone gets that close for the first time and it feels good but there's no idea where it's going next.

He's not sure how long they stay out there, just kissing; but it's long enough that he feels like they've been at it for hours and _God_ , it fucking feels good. She slides her fingers into his hair, curling around the back of his neck, and he likes that, too. "I should probably go," she murmurs, but she doesn't stop the gentle motion of her fingers in his hair.

"Yeah," he says. "Not that I _want_ you to…"

"... but I should," she finishes. MacKenzie takes her time in unwinding herself from him, giving him a long, slow kiss that ends with both of them breathless and Will on the edge of asking her to stay even though he knows it's better if this doesn't get out of hand. She straightens her shirt and runs a hand through her hair. "Call me this week, if you want," she says. "And if not, it's okay. But I had a really nice time tonight."

"So did I." He walks her to her car and watches her drive away, and the house is too quiet when he goes back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for this fic came from three things: one, the comment in 2.05 when Will talks about his father bringing in the cows (I suspected Will grew up on a farm but season two just confirmed it) and two, all the farms in rural Oregon not far from where I live, and three, my own experiences as a kid growing up on a farm. What if Will had grown up in a farming area in a blue state instead of a red one? What if he fell in love with someone else before he fell in love with Mac? I thought exploring an AU like this would be a fun way to kill time until the long hiatus is over.. hope you enjoy it. There's much more to come.
> 
> (also, there's a tumblr for this fic, where I post random things that are inspiration or somehow related to different things in the fic - check it out if you want: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/thatfarmau ).


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will learns to drive a car again, and has a talk with his daughter.

Will doesn't call her on Sunday.

It isn't because he doesn't want to (because he does), or that he doesn't have time (because he does, although not until later in the day). It's because he doesn't have the first fucking clue what to say. She's leaving for New York on Thursday, so it's not like he has forever to figure out what to say; he does know, however, that _hey, it was fun making out with you on my back porch yesterday, want to come over and have another round before you leave town?_ is not really going to cut it. And that isn't what he wants, anyway--okay, he's not going to say no to kissing her again, but that's not why he wants to call her. 

What does he want? 

He's not entirely sure. All he knows is that he doesn't want her to go back to New York before he gets a chance to see her again.

MacKenzie solves the _should I call her and if so what do I say and if not how do I explain why I didn't call_ problem by just showing up on Monday afternoon. He's repairing the fence that separates his back yard from the lower field when he sees her walking across the grass toward him. _Shit_ , he thinks, and wipes his sweaty hands on jeans grubby from the day's work before waving at her.

She's wearing jeans again, and a white t-shirt, and he's not sure how she manages to make jeans and a t-shirt look like she's dressed for midday lunch at the country club, but she does. "Hi," she says. "I was in the neighborhood. I thought I'd stop by." 

"Well," he says, at a loss for the right kind of response. "In the neighborhood… down the road…" He was going for witty and charming, but it didn't quite work. Thankfully, she doesn't seem to mind.

"Same thing. Yes, I know." MacKenzie leans on the intact portion of the fence, resting her arms on the upper railing and looking out across the field. "It's lovely here. I haven't visited in so many years… I'd forgotten how clean the air is here, and how you can see the mountains just over that way."

"Can't imagine living anywhere else, myself," Will says.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I didn't mind Portland, but I like it better here. It's quiet, it's private, and in general, I prefer the company of animals to the company of people."

"Oh, well--I can go, and leave you alone with the cows," she says, but he can tell she's teasing by the way her eyes crinkle up at the corners.

"No, not like that," he says, and can't help but laugh. "I just mean--animals do stupid things sometimes because they don't know any better, but they don't have any ulterior motives. They just do what they do. People, on the other hand, almost always know better, and usually when people do stupid things it's because they're trying to get away with something or trying to keep someone else down or just be an asshole because no one's stopping them from doing it. There's no bullshit involved with animals. What you see is what you get."

"I suppose you saw plenty of bullshit when you were a prosecutor."

"Enough to last a lifetime. Which is why I got out when I had the chance. You know, you do the news. It's got to be like a front-row seat to Bullshit Theatre 2000."

MacKenzie rolls her eyes. "God," she says, "especially when it's politics."

"Which seems like it's the only thing that's news these days."

"It's the most _important_ thing," MacKenzie replies. "There's nothing more important in this country than a well-informed electorate. And it's the responsibility of every journalist to present the facts, and only the facts, without the manipulative bullshit baggage that does nothing but detract from the facts."

"Doesn't seem to be what most people put on tv," Will says, and while he's saying it because it's true (at least from his point of view) he's also saying it to bait her a little, because there's a flush in her cheeks that's less about them standing in the sun and more about her getting fired up about something she's passionate about, and damned if he doesn't want to see more of it. "Seems to me that most people on the news just want to tell you what's wrong with the world, why it's wrong and who's to blame for it."

"And that's exactly what we shouldn't be doing!" She pushes off the fence, gesturing angrily with her hands. "Just the facts. Not what's going to make good television, not what's going to be entertainment, but just the facts. That's all we need. Yes, there are some stupid people in this country but I believe the majority of Americans are smart enough to draw their own conclusions if you just give them the facts and leave out the bullshit."

"You think so?"

"I do. And I'm trying to prove it, but I can't get the numbers. It's so--God, it's so frustrating. If people would just give the show a chance, they'd like it, but it seems they're all still hung up on Fox and their ridiculous nonsense and blathering on. MSNBC's just as bad, only in the other direction. I don't want to be a part of any of that."

"Of course not." Honestly, he's only been half-listening to what she's saying, though he's not going to admit it; he gets the general idea (and agrees with it) but he got lost in the details somewhere around the time she got into how her show wasn't going to be about entertainment or good television, because he was too distracted by watching her get angry about something she's passionate about. 

Will doesn't get stirred up like that about anything anymore, and he hasn't since Claire died. 

"I'm not really going to be able to change anything at ten o'clock, though," she goes on. "If I could get Elliot to eight, I could do something, but I don't think the network is willing to move Jane Barrow from the primetime slot yet. It's so frustrating."

"You never know," Will says, trying to be encouraging--though it's hard, because he doesn't know enough about what she does to offer any real advice. "Just keep doing what you're doing. I know at least one American who likes your show, so there's that."

"Better one American than none," she says, and when she smiles Will feels it all the way down to his dusty boots.

*****

MacKenzie walks back to the house with him when he's finished with the fence. Will leaves his boots at the back door, out of years of habit, and is acutely aware of just how long he's been out in the sun and just how much he's been sweating. 

Emma sits at the kitchen counter, attention divided between her phone, a book, and a couple of pots simmering on the stove. "Hi, Daddy," she says, and doesn't seem surprised to see MacKenzie with him. "I'm making spaghetti. Are you staying for dinner, MacKenzie?"

"I don't want to intrude," she says, glancing between Emma and Will.

"I don't care," Emma says. "You can if you want, there's a lot. I can cook three things, and this is one of them. It's not as good as Red Robin, but I'm getting better. Daddy likes it, anyway."

"I do," Will says, and kisses Emma's hair, which she grudgingly allows. "Why don't you stick around?" he says to MacKenzie. It's neighbors having dinner, right? "I'm going to shower. Try not to burn the house down?"

"If I was going to burn it down, I would have when you were outside," Emma says, rolling her eyes. "Plus, I'm gonna make salad, and I don't think I can burn the house down with that, unless you can start a fire with a tomato…"

"Smartass."

He goes upstairs to shower, and when he comes back down again, Emma is setting the table with a little help from MacKenzie. "Took you long enough," Emma says. "We were going to eat without you."

"No, you weren't."

"Yes, we were," MacKenzie teases. "But now you're here."

Will feels vaguely ganged-up-on, but he doesn't mind so much as maybe he should. "Next time I'll just come sit beside you without showering," he grumbles, "and see how you like it."

*****

Emma disappears after dinner, which doesn't surprise Will; on nights she makes dinner, he cleans up afterward. MacKenzie insists on helping him, and he doesn't argue with her because he learned last time that doesn't get him anywhere. 

"She's a nice girl," MacKenzie says, after Emma disappears upstairs. 

"She is," Will agrees. "I get frustrated with her sometimes… but she really is a good kid. She works hard at school, I don't worry that she's going to get herself in trouble because she has a good head on her shoulders, and she's taken on more responsibility around the house than maybe a thirteen year old should." He's not the greatest judge of how much a kid should do around the house; at Emma's age, Will thought the more he helped with things, the less angry he could make his father, so he doesn't use his own experience as a guide. "I just… I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if I'm getting it right."

"I don't know anything about raising children, either with a partner or alone," MacKenzie says. "And I don't know either of you all that well. But it seems to me like you're doing what every other parent probably has to do--figuring it out as you go along. I suppose that's all you can do, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Will says. "I guess that's all I can do." 

"There you go then." She puts the last dish in the dishwasher and closes it. "I was going to catch the show at ten," she tells him. "I've been watching while I've been away--it's strange to see it going on without me, but it's nice, too, to see how it looks from the other side."

"You could watch it here," Will suggests, and pulls two beers from the fridge. "If you want to stick around for a while. But only if you tell me about all the cool things you'd be doing behind the scenes if you were there. Because I have no idea what an executive producer does--I mean, I assume you tell everyone else what to do, but that's about all I've got."

Will opens both beers and offers her one. "All right, then," MacKenzie says, taking the offered drink. "But it's really not all that glamorous. The news itself is much more interesting than how we actually get it on the air."

"Good." He realizes, as she's agreeing to stick around, that it's at least three hours between now and the time the show comes on and he's not entirely sure how to be a great host in the interim. It's nervous habit that has him patting his pockets in search of a cigarette and a lighter, and finding neither, he takes a minute to look in the usual places he stashes them before he comes up with half a pack and an almost-empty lighter. "I'm going to step outside for a minute," he says, gesturing towards the porch with the crumpled pack. "If you want to come with me. Or not," he adds, because for all he knows, she could hate smoking. "I won't be long."

"I don't mind." She follows him outside and joins him on the swing when he settles into it. "Actually, if you want to share, I'm okay with that, too." 

Will hands her a cigarette and lights it for her, then takes a moment to light his own before leaning back in the swing. "I should quit, I know," he says, exhaling. "Emma hates it, Claire hated it. I almost managed to quit, when Claire got sick, but I could never kick it. Cut way down, but couldn't give it up all together."

"It's hard," MacKenzie says. "I only smoke occasionally, but sometimes, you just _really_ need a cigarette and nothing else will do."

"Exactly."

They sit there in the quiet for a few minutes, with their cigarettes and their beers, and it's nice. Well, nice is an understatement, and probably the most generic word possible to describe the feeling. Maybe _comfortable_ is a better word. There's a small, heavy glass ashtray that Will keeps on the window ledge close to the swing; he puts it between them on the swing and for a while there's nothing but the slow back and forth of the swing, the soft tap of a cigarette into the ashtray or the faint click of a beer bottle against the swing or the floor of the porch.

"How's it going with your grandfather's things?" Will asks, after a few minutes. "Are you going to be finished before you leave?"

"Mostly," she says. "I've sorted through all of his clothes and most of his books, and St. Vincent's is coming to pick up some things on Wednesday morning, along with some of the furniture that my mother doesn't care to keep. But going through his personal things is going to take a bit longer, and I don't think I'll be finished before I go. I'll have to come back another time. When, I'm not sure." She takes a long drag off the cigarette, exhaling slowly. "It's difficult to take time off."

"News never stops?"

"No, it doesn't. I've spent most of my time trying to get legal things sorted and get a feel for the farm's accounts, so I haven't had much time for the rest. But I'm not in a hurry to sell, so I can take my time with it."

"That's good." Will finishes his beer and places the bottle carefully on the window ledge. "I guess a job like yours doesn't leave a lot of time for dating?"

MacKenzie flicks her cigarette into the ashtray. "Is that your way of asking me if I'm seeing anyone?"

"Well, yeah, I guess it is," he says.

"You're terrible at subtlety."

"I am, yeah. Kind of out of practice."

"It's okay," she says, smiling a little. "It's honest. You don't have to be smooth or anything. We're just neighbors, having a beer."

"Yeah," he says. Of course that's all it is; she's leaving for New York in a few days and who knows if or when she'll be back.

"But to answer the question you didn't quite ask, no. I'm not involved with anyone, not right now. I was seeing this guy for a while… Brian Brenner, he writes for Newsweek. But it didn't work out. We broke up a few months ago."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He's a douchebag."

"Then I'm sorry he was a douchebag."

MacKenzie laughs softly and stubs out her cigarette. "Well, he's in the past," she says. "Where he belongs." 

"Yeah." He finishes his cigarette and puts the ashtray in the windowsill so he doesn't do something stupid like knock it everywhere, and when he does, MacKenzie slides closer to him on the swing.

"Did I scare you the other day?" she says.

"No."

"I'm just asking, because you didn't call. I wanted to be sure I wasn't out of line."

"Yeah," he says. "About that." Will rests his arm along the back of the swing and his fingers brush against her shoulder. "It wasn't that I didn't want to call, because I did. I just, you know. Didn't know what to say."

"It's okay," she says. "That's why I didn't call before I came over. I couldn't figure out what to say, and I thought if I just showed up I'd be forced to say something."

"Good plan."

"I don't really have a plan now, though," she says. "So I thought I'd just--"

"Wing it?"

"Something like that."

It's Will that kisses her first, this time. She's looking up at him like that with her eyes soft and curious and he feels like there's nothing else he _can_ do except kiss her. MacKenzie kisses him back like she's been waiting all afternoon for this and it feels damn good. She shifts closer to him, not quite into his lap but close enough that her denim-clad thigh is pressed against his, and her fingers slide into his hair, and it's good. Really good. Will cups her face in his hands and she feels so small and delicate, like he's holding something precious, and then he's so caught up in kissing her, _really_ kissing her in that way that's a little messy and desperate and makes him feel like he's rolling down a hill in a car with no brakes and he doesn't ever want to get to the bottom.

"Sorry," he says, after a few minutes, when he manages to pull his mouth away from hers enough to speak. "I got a little carried away."

"It's fine." MacKenzie drags her thumb over his lower lip and he barely resists the urge to suck it into his mouth; then she leans in to kiss him again and he's drawn right back in.

God, he wants her. And the thing is, he didn't think that he'd ever be interested in another woman after his wife died, but he _is_ , and he feels a little (more than a little, really) guilty about that but it doesn't make him want MacKenzie any less.

The thing about being with someone for as many years as he was with Claire was that you get comfortable with someone. You know what they like, what they don't like, when they're into it and when they're not--you learn all these little clues and they learn yours and after a while it's all instinct, like driving familiar roads in a familiar town, where you know where the cops sit in speed traps and where there's going to be traffic jams or the low places that flood when it rains too hard. And then you're with someone new and it's like driving an unfamiliar car in a city you've never been to before--you know _how_ to drive, but you don't know exactly where you're going or how long it's going to take you to get there or what's going to happen along the way. That's how he feels right now--it's exciting and nervewracking at the same time, and he's hyperaware of every little sound, like the way she sucks in a sharp breath when he slides his hand under her t-shirt or the soft feel of her mouth and the warmth of her breath when she kisses his neck. 

It's only when he hears footsteps from inside that he pulls away; MacKenzie must hear them too, because she shifts away and straightens her shirt just in time for Emma to open the door, phone in hand. "Daddy, can I go to the movies with Megan on Wednesday? Her mom invited all the girls in jazz band to go to the movies together before school starts."

"Yeah," Will says, and his voice is at least an octave lower than usual. He clears his throat and tries again. "Yeah, sure. As long as I know what the movie is before you go," he adds. Maybe it's unnecessary--it's not like a bunch of thirteen year old girls are going to be able to get into an R rated movie, but it feels like something he's supposed to say.

"Okay!" Emma says brightly, and the screen door swings shut behind her as she goes back inside.

"I'm sorry," MacKenzie says, looking a little embarrassed. "I hope I didn't--"

"No," Will says. "Trust me, you didn't. If she saw anything and felt weird about it, she'd say so. She's pretty blunt."

"Okay." MacKenzie doesn't look entirely convinced, and maybe Will isn't either.

"I haven't thought about--I mean, I guess I should have, I just never thought I'd be interested in anyone after Claire," he says, and it's a clumsy explanation but it's all he's got. "So I haven't thought about… you know. What she might think about something like this. But I should. I should think about this kind of stuff. I'm her father, I should think about it."

"Will, it's okay." She rests her hand on his knee, squeezing lightly. "It's fine. You don't have to over-think it… if it's not something you want to bring up with her, if you're not ready to get into any of this, we don't have to."

"I know."

"I didn't come out here looking for--I didn't expect this," she says. "I thought I'd come and take care of his affairs and that would be that. I didn't expect you, or any of this. But I'm not sorry for it, and I hope you aren't either."

He brushes his fingers against her cheek. "I'm not."

"Good." 

*****

Later, they move to the living room, where Will flicks on the TV, so that MacKenzie can catch the news. He rarely watches it (he doesn't have time--he prefers reading his news, because he can read it much faster than a guy in a suit can tell it to him) so he doesn't know offhand which channel ACN is on the satellite box--and that's a little awkward, sitting next to someone who runs an ACN program. But MacKenzie isn't offended that he has to search for the channel, and they find it just as _The Capitol Report_ is just signing off and _Right Now_ is coming on.

She sits next to him on the couch, close enough that it's clear she wants to be close, but not so close that it's going to be awkward if Emma wanders downstairs again. She pulls a little notebook from her purse and grins a little when Will notices it. "I should take notes," she says. "It's not often I watch it from this point of view. Don't worry, I'm not writing down anything you say."

It's actually pretty informative--MacKenzie's explanation of what goes on behind the scenes, that is, not so much the actual show. She's irritated that Elliot spends so much time on the coroner's report of Michael Jackson's death and less time on American politics ("That's not news," she scoffs, "that's entertainment, and it's worse than vultures circling a carcass,") but overall she's pleased enough with the broadcast that she's able to explain how they transition from segment to segment, how the stories are arranged into "blocks" and the process of deciding which stories they'll cover and in which block they'll be featured. It's fascinating stuff and Will only interrupts a few times to ask her to clarify something.

When the show is over, MacKenzie's filled several pages in her notebook with notes and comments from the show, and Will feels a little sorry for Elliot once he gets those notes. It's not so much that they're harsh or overly critical; he's just seen that MacKenzie is determined to analyze every little detail of the show to make it the best it can possibly be.

"I should go," she says, a little reluctantly, tucking her notebook back into her purse. "I have some appointments in the morning."

"And I have to get up early and start baling hay," Will says, and then adds, at her blank look, "We've already cut the hay and it's been drying in the sun. Now it's dry enough and we have to bale it. Scoop it up in a machine that squeezes it into nice little rectangle bales to stack in the barn." Which is time-consuming and kind of a pain, but it feeds the cows through the winter so it's a necessity--and it needs to be finished before the rainy season starts. "I'll walk you to your car."

It strikes him, as he's walking her to the car, that she's only got two more days here, and if he dicks around on calling her like he did this time, he might miss seeing her again before she leaves. So he decides, _what the hell_ , and says, "If you're not busy Wednesday night, we could go to dinner."

"Are you asking me out?" 

"I guess I am." He's not sure if she's teasing him or not (he feels like the car analogy is still applicable here) so he treads cautiously. "Just two neighbors having dinner? I know a good place. Emma's going to be out at the movies with the other band kids, so…"

"Sounds good." 

Will reaches for the car door to open it for her, but MacKenzie slips between him and the car and leans up on her toes to kiss him. It's not the desperate, messy kind of kissing from earlier, but it's tender and sweet and it makes his knees weak--or at least that's what he tells himself is the reason he presses her against the car for another long, lingering kiss. 

He's still feeling that weak-in-the-knees feeling when he goes back into the house, where Emma's in the kitchen in her pajamas, pouring a glass of milk. "Did MacKenzie go home?" she asks, putting the milk carton away.

"Yeah." He settles on one of the stools at the counter and drums his fingers on the countertop for a few moments before working up the nerve to say, "Listen, kiddo. I think MacKenzie and I are going to dinner on Wednesday while you're out at the movies with Megan."

"Okay," she says, drawing the word out a little, like she's not sure why he's telling her this. "Are you like, friends or something?"

"I guess so," he says, because he doesn't really know what to call it and doesn't want to put a label on it. "But it's kind of--I think it's more like going out."

"Oh." Emma looks at her glass, picks it up, and puts it down again without drinking it. "Like a date."

"Kind of," he says carefully. He's not sure what her reaction will be, and he's tiptoeing around it. "Yeah. Like a date." Will waits to see what she'll say to that, and when she doesn't say anything, he adds, "Is that okay?" He's not asking her permission, because he's the adult here, for fuck's sake--but he does want her to be okay with it. Or at least not hate the idea.

"I guess." She pokes at her glass of milk, scooting it along the counter a little at a time with her fingertip. "I mean, it's not like Mom's coming back."

Emma doesn't talk about Claire much, but when she does, it makes Will's heart ache for her. "No, honey," he says softly. "She's not. No matter how much she wish she was still here."

"Do you miss her?"

 _Shit._ Will's not prepared for this conversation with her; he's never prepared for a conversation about Claire, least of all with the one person he needs to be able to talk about her with. "Every day," he says.

"I still remember her," Emma says, "but not as much as I used to. I have to look at pictures to remember what she looks like. Looked like. But I don't remember what her voice sounded like anymore, and I don't want to not remember everything. I don't want to forget her."

"Come here, kiddo," he says, and she does, leaving her glass on the counter and stepping close to him so he can slide his arms around her and hug her as tightly as he dares. She doesn't let him do that as much as she used to, but she does now, hugging him back just as tightly. "I'm never going to forget your mother. I promise."

"But you want to go on a date with MacKenzie," she says. He's surprised that it's not petulant, but it isn't; she's just saying it. 

"Yeah," he says. He holds her close for another long moments then lets go, resting his hands on her shoulders. Emma looks so much like her mother then that it _hurts_ and he wonders, not for the first time, or the fiftieth time, or even the hundredth time, if that's ever going to stop. "It doesn't mean I stopped loving your mom. Or you."

"I didn't think you did. It's just… I don't know. Weird."

"I know. But it's just a date. And I think it's going to be okay." Will squeezes her shoulders. "You okay with that?"

"I guess." She sighs and wrinkles up her face the same way the kid in _The Princess Bride_ does when he says, _Is this a kissing book?_ "Just, I don't know. Don't do anything dorky or gross."

He's _not_ going to ask for a definition of dorky or gross. He's just not. "I'll try not to," he says, and squeezes her shoulders again before he lets go.

"Okay." She picks up her glass of milk and kisses his cheek before disappearing upstairs again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and MacKenzie go on a date; Will begins a story for Emma.

_Emma,_

_I met your mother on a Friday afternoon. I remember it was Friday, because I only had one class in the morning on Fridays that term and I spent the rest of the day in the library because I didn't want to come home until I absolutely had to. I didn't live on campus; we couldn't afford it._

_So I was in the library, downstairs, and she was standing at the card catalog. (That's what we looked in to find books before there were computers; a big cabinet with tiny drawers full of index cards, one card for each book. You don't know how easy you have it now.) She was trying to look through a drawer in the card catalog with one hand and hold onto an armful of books with the other and I could tell from the minute she opened the drawer that either the drawer would slide out of the cabinet or she would drop her books. She ended up dropping the books, and I went over to help her pick them up, and she said "Thank you," and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, despite the fact this was 1986 and she, like every other girl on campus, had teased-out hair and acid-washed jeans and a sorority sweatshirt with a turtleneck underneath. (We won't get into what I was wearing; you've seen enough pictures. It was bad.)_

_She said, "Thank you," but I didn't say anything back and then she walked away with some other girls in sorority sweatshirts and that was that._

*****

Will can tell, when they pull up in the parking lot at Bruno's, that MacKenzie isn't impressed. He's not worried about that; the place looks kind of decrepit on the outside, but the food is fucking fantastic. "Isn't there a saying about not judging a book by its cover?" he asks, when he opens the truck door for her. "Trust me. It's great."

"I'm going to take your word for it." She shifts in the seat and slides out of the truck, and Will's distracted by her legs; she's wearing a little blue dress that wraps around and ends right above the knees, and a pair of heels that make her legs seem to just go on for miles. They're not going to be great for walking across the gravel parking lot, though, so he offers her his arm and she takes it, laughing a little. "Such a gentleman."

"I try." 

The restaurant is small, and Will likes it for all the reasons that make it weird; there are only a dozen or so tables, none of which match, the chairs are all different, and there's a huge tree growing right up through the middle of the dining room (which is actually an enclosed porch), covered in Christmas lights. It's completely unpretentious, like Bruno (the chef) is so busy coming up with the best things he can make he doesn't give a shit about what the restaurant looks like.

A waitress brings the menus, which are handwritten in colored pen--or possibly marker--and after she takes their drink orders, Will explains, "See, the menu changes every week. And there's at least one thing on the menu, every week, that he's never made before. I've never had anything here that wasn't fucking fantastic."

MacKenzie skims over the menu for a moment before looking up with a little smile. "Then order for both of us," she says. "I'm not picky, unless there are candied jellyfish or something on the menu and that's completely off-limits. Otherwise, go for it."

This is too much pressure, Will thinks, because what if he orders something she hates? Claire never asked him to order for her, but he could have, since he knew exactly what she did and didn't like, but all he knows about MacKenzie's tastes so far is that she doesn't mind his burgers or Emma's spaghetti, and candied jellyfish are off limits. Not helpful. So he orders the crab cakes for a starter, the asparagus pasta for her and the rhubarb-barbeque chicken for him, and maybe that's enough variety that there will be at least one thing she likes.

It turns out that it's all fucking fantastic (as he knew it would be) and she likes everything; she tries his chicken and he steals some of her pasta and they sort of end up eating off each other's plates, which is kind of weird but neither of them cares because there's too much good stuff to taste.

"Oh, my God," MacKenzie says, stealing the last bite of chicken from Will's plate. "This was amazing. I can't remember the last time I've eaten something this delicious and I've been to some of the best restaurants in New York." She sighs, putting her fork down reluctantly, as if the meal is over too soon for her liking. "Though, it could just be the company."

Will makes a softly dismissive noise and shrugs. "It's the best restaurant in town, if you ask me," he says.

"And I'm here with the best company in town." She slides her hand across the table, brushing her fingers against his. Will slips his hand over hers and feels, again, that sensation of rolling down a hill in a car with no brakes and the bottom of the hill nowhere in sight. 

*****

After dinner, Will drives MacKenzie back to her grandfather's house--her house, now, he supposes--but when he kills the engine, neither of them make a move to get out of the truck. They sit in silence for a moment, the only sound that of the cooling engine ticking softly, and then Will says, "You probably have an early flight in the morning," which is quite possibly one of the more inane things he could have said at this point.

"I do," she says. "And you probably want to be home by the time Emma gets back."

"Yeah, I probably should."

"Right," she says softly. "This has been a lovely week, Will, and I wasn't expecting it to be. So thank you."

"You're welcome." He really feels like he should have something better or more memorable to say, but the words are all jumbled and won't come out and it's easier to stick with the safer ones. 

"You'll keep in touch?"

"Yeah." He can't read her face in the darkness, but her voice is soft and a little hopeful and _shit_ , he's really going to miss her. MacKenzie breezed into his life, completely unexpectedly, and now she's about to float right out again after waking up something inside him he thought was just _gone_ for good and he's not quite sure how to deal with that. He wants to tell her how much that means to him, and how it makes him feel, but he knows as soon as he thinks it he's not going to be able to put it into words, so he leans across the seat to kiss her, instead. 

Her response is strong and immediate, as if she--like him--has been wanting to do this all night. She slides across the truck seat to press close to him, kissing him hungrily, and the soft, clingy dress she's wearing hides none of her curves from his hands; she's half in his lap, as much as the confines of the truck will allow, and the friction of her hip pressed against his dick is maddening. MacKenzie tugs his shirt out of his pants and pulls at the buttons, sliding her hands across Will's chest, and it's the simple, exquisite pleasure of being touched, of experiencing the warmth of another person's skin against his that makes him groan in immediate agreement when she says, "Come inside with me? Just for a little while." 

Will shoves the drivers-side door open and she slides off his lap and out of the truck, dragging him with her. He can't keep his hands off of her for a moment, not even when she's fumbling in her purse for the house key; he's wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissing her neck while she tries to navigate the door, and maybe that's why it takes her three tries to get it open, but she doesn't seem to care. They stumble through the darkened house without bothering to turn on a light and Will bangs his knee on an end table, swearing softly. "Come on," MacKenzie murmurs, hooking her fingers in his belt loops and dragging him with her to the back bedroom.

If Will had had the chance to really think about this, it might have gone a different way, because he would probably have talked himself out of it; but he's not thinking and he's definitely not talking himself out of anything, not when it feels so goddamn good to kiss her, to have the warmth of her body pressed against his, to have her small, warm hands pulling at his clothes and sliding over his skin. He tugs at the little knot that looks like it's holding her dress together and quickly finds out it's just for looks and doesn't _actually_ come undone; she giggles a little (Jesus Christ, what a fucking adorable sound, and he's not sure how her particular combination of hot and adorable just _works_ ) and tugs at her dress until he gets the hint and pushes it up and over her head--and then he just wants to _look_ at her, to soak up the sight of her and remember it after she's gone, but there probably isn't enough time for that ( _because she's leaving in the morning_ , he reminds himself) so when she works his pants open he doesn't stop her, and he pulls her onto the bed with him in a tangle of arms and legs that he doesn't want to sort out. 

MacKenzie straddles him, wrapping her hand around his dick, and it's been so long since he's had any hand but his own around his dick that he has to put his hand over hers for a moment, stilling her-- _slow down a little_ \--so he doesn't end up just coming on her hand before they've even started. She gets the hint and eases up, leaning down to kiss him while he touches her everywhere he can reach; her breasts are full and perfect and fit his hands like they belong there, and she sighs against his mouth as he touches her. He's drunk on her touch, on touching her, on feeling her skin against his, and he doesn't want it to stop. Will wants hours and days and weeks with her that they don't have, but he'll take this since it's all they've got. He slides his hands over her body, down her back and hips and between her thighs, and that pulls a low, needy whine from her--and from him, too, when his fingers slip across the slickness of her cunt and brush her clit. She shifts her hips up and uses her hand to guide him into her and it feels so goddamn _good_ that the sound he makes is embarrassing but he doesn't even care. "Please," he says, and she rocks her hips, taking him all the way in with a soft little whine of need; he slides his fingers over her clit, trying to learn how she wants to be touched, and she grinds against his hand, taking him in deeper, riding him hard enough that her breasts bounce a little. He didn't know it was possible to be this close to coming without actually coming, and he feels like if he doesn't come soon, he's going to scream; when she comes, it's with a rough little sound and it's enough to make her whole body shudder. He has just enough time to feel her nails digging into his shoulder and then he's coming, too, hot and desperate and every sensation exquisitely clear. 

She curls against his chest and doesn't immediately move, even as he's softening inside her. He holds her close and swallows down everything he's feeling; because it won't do either of them any good. "You're amazing," he says instead, stroking her back, when what he really wants to say is _I don't want you to go._

They're like that for a few minutes, and Will is glad she doesn't immediately get up; he wants to memorize how she feels, how it feels to be with her. He wants to remember. Eventually she uncurls herself from his chest and leans up to kiss him, soft and sweet, and then eases off him. 

"I should get back before Emma does," Will says, as he gets up and collects his clothes. MacKenzie pulls on her underwear and a t-shirt and then laughs, reaching up to smooth down his hair. "You can't go back to your daughter looking like this," she says, straightening his hair and his shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. 

"Looking like what?"

"Freshly fucked." She grins at him and tweaks his collar. "Sets a bad example."

"I don't even want to think about that," he groans.

"I was sixteen when I lost my virginity," she tells him. "Not that much older than Emma is now."

"Jesus Christ," he says, and covers his ears--he doesn't want to think about his daughter having sex. Ever. Especially not right this minute, but not ever.

MacKenzie laughs and tugs his hands away from his ears. "I'm just saying," she murmurs. "But now you look perfectly respectable." She leans up to kiss him, then rests her hands against his chest. "See me off tomorrow?"

That, Will discovers, is easier said than done. He leaves Emma asleep at home at four in the morning and follows MacKenzie's rental car out to the local airport. While she checks in at the counter, he waits in a hard plastic chair and watches the line through the metal detector steadily gets longer. (How the fuck a little regional airport can be so damn busy at four in the morning, he doesn't know.) The line is so long that by the time MacKenzie's finished checking in, she'll have to get in line right away or risk missing her flight, so there's no time for anything but a quick hug and a promise to keep in touch, and then Will has to walk away, because if he doesn't walk away _right now_ , he won't be able to walk away at all. 

When he gets home, he sits on the porch and smokes until the sun comes up.

*****  
 _Emma,_

_You said you didn't want to forget her. I don't want you to forget her. You shouldn't. She loved you so much. You were her whole world. I've never seen her happier than the day she told me she was pregnant with you, except maybe the day you were born._

_There's a lot you don't know about her, about us, and I thought if I put it down on paper, then you'll know it. And if it's on paper, you can't forget, no matter what else happens._

_When you marry someone, you say 'till death do us part', but you don't really think about that part. It's just something you say, shorthand for 'a really long time'. But sometimes it isn't a really long time. Sometimes you only get a little while, and you don't know what to do when that time is up. I'm still trying to figure that part out. Maybe by the time I finish telling you your mother's story, I'll know what to do with the rest of mine._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanksgiving at the McAvoy farm.

_After the library, I didn't see her again for a few weeks. Then one Friday, I was in my usual place in the library, when she brought her books over and sat down across from me at the table. I was too damn scared to talk to her, so I pretended to read my book and ignore her, as if I hadn't seen her. She tolerated this for about half an hour before she said, "If you want to ask me out, you actually have to ask me, you know." I'm sure you'll think I'm an idiot (and I was), because I just looked at her with my mouth hanging open, and she sighed and picked up her books and walked away._

_The next week was Homecoming. All the sororities and fraternities had booths at the street fair with all these different games and things like you see at a carnival. Each one was a fundraiser for a different charity, and I remember this very clearly because your mother's house was raising money for cancer research. It was Friday afternoon, and I was putting off going home, so I wandered by the street fair to see what was going on. I didn't play any of the games because I didn't have any money; I just liked walking around and seeing other people have fun._

_When I realized Claire was working the booth for her house, I tried to make a beeline for the other side of the street, but she saw me and said, "Hey. You from the library," and I couldn't really get away after that. The game was one of those things where you have to toss a baseball into an old-fashioned milk can, and if you got it into certain ones you got a prize. She asked me if I wanted to play, and I told her I didn't have any money. She said, "Then I'll give you two free shots, and if you make one, I'll go out with you."_

_I made both shots and we went to the football game together the next afternoon._

*****

Late summer and early fall keep Will busy enough that sometimes he can almost forget about missing MacKenzie. There is hay to bale and put up for the winter--he has more than enough to get his herd through the winter, which means he has some to sell, and that's helpful--decisions to make about which animals to keep through the winter and which to sell, and a hundred other things to do that won't get done unless he does them. 

Emma starts eighth grade after Labor Day, and Will doesn't think he's old enough to be the father of a kid who will be in high school soon--he doesn't even want to think about what comes after high school. Seventh grade had been rough for her, but she likes her eighth grade teachers and she's expanding her circle of friends a little. Will doesn't know anything about the social lives of middle school kids, but she seems to be happy, so he assumes it's okay. She watches football with him on Saturdays--Duck games, if they're playing--and a couple of times he gets tickets for home games and they go together. Claire's parents have a suite in the box that Will knows they are welcome to use, but Emma prefers to sit in the endzone near the band, so that's what they do. 

When the weather cools, Emma wears a green-and-yellow-striped scarf to the games with her favorite jacket and she looks just like her mother did, years ago. She buys green O stickers at the store and sticks them to her cheeks, knows all the words to Mighty Oregon and sings along whenever the Ducks score a touchdown, and Will's pretty confident that when it's time for her to go to college, she'll stay right here and he won't have to worry about her going far away.

He talks to MacKenzie on nearly a daily basis. It's usually via email, because of the time difference and their busy schedules, but she calls him sometimes on the weekends and by late October, he's learned to use Skype. In some ways he prefers email. Over email, he feels like he can be a little more candid about things, and he can read and re-read their conversations when he has a moment. But he also misses the sound of her voice, and it's for that reason that their weekend phone calls or Skype sessions have become something he looks forward to. He tells her what's going on on the farm and she tells him what's happening in her newsroom and occasionally, very occasionally, they venture into what might happen if they were able to see each other more.

Will doesn't ask her when she can come and visit. He knows she's busy and doesn't want to make her feel guilty--and they haven't put a name on this thing, whatever it is, so he doesn't feel like they are in a place where he can ask. But as October turns to November, MacKenzie tells him that she's going to be able to get some time off at Thanksgiving, and wants to know if she can visit, and if she can stay with him and Emma instead of at her grandfather's place.

 _Well, duh,_ as Emma would say.

MacKenzie arrives the day before Thanksgiving. Will picks her up at the airport in the early afternoon. It's easy to find her, because the little airport only has one baggage claim, and MacKenzie drops her bag and hugs him so hard she nearly knocks him over. "I missed you," she says, her face pressed against his chest.

"I missed you, too." He slides his arms around her and holds her close and he's forgotten how delicate she is and how his arms go all the way around her easily. "How was your flight?"

"Horrible," she says. "Hot and stifling. I feel like I've been stuffed in a tin can for the last ten hours and I'm dying for something to eat that doesn't come out of a packet."

He rolls her bag out to the truck and opens the door for her, but instead of climbing in she kisses him. "I really missed you," she says, when she finally pulls her mouth away. 

"Come here," he says, and pulls her into his arms again. The wind picks up a little and it's chilly, but the open door of the truck blocks a little of it and Will doesn't mind. "I missed you too. But it's going to be a good weekend. Just think about that, for now." Will's not going to think about how much he missed her, because he'll be missing her enough when she leaves again.

*****

That night after dinner, they share a cigarette on the porch. It's colder now, so she sits close to him on the swing and they're both bundled up in jackets. Will's wearing a hat, because his hair's getting a little thin on top, and MacKenzie has one of his old jackets that's far too big for her because she didn't feel like going upstairs to get her own. She looks like she's drowning in it, and the sleeves hang down far enough past her hands that she has to keep pushing them up. Will thinks it's adorable.

"I put your suitcase in the spare room," he tells her. "Not that you have to--I mean, I made it up for you, just in case, but if you want to stay with me, it's fine. Emma was upstairs when I took it up, and I didn't want to--"

"No, I get it," MacKenzie says. "You didn't want to be obvious about it in front of her."

"Something like that."

She shifts closer to him on the swing and leans against him. "She's your daughter, Will," she says. "Whatever you do or don't want to tell her about us is fine with me; I'll follow your lead on that. You want to set a good example for her, I get it."

Will sighs and puts his arm around MacKenzie. "I do," he says. "But Emma wasn't the only reason I put your suitcase in the spare room. I didn't know how you'd feel about…"

"Sleeping in the bed you used to share with your wife?"

"Yeah."

"It's fine." MacKenzie rests her head on his shoulder and flicks the ashes off her cigarette. "This is your home, Will."

"I know," he says carefully. The conversation is making him a little uncomfortable, if only because the last two and a half months he's gotten used to talking to her through email, through the phone, through a computer screen, and face to face now feels strange. He doesn't want it to feel strange.

MacKenzie finishes her cigarette and kisses his cheek. "I was going to stay up and catch the show tonight, but I'm tired. Still on Eastern time," she says, with a little smile. "I'm going to bed, and whenever you like, you can join me."

Will waits a little while before going upstairs. He turns on the dishwasher, checks the locks on the doors, sets the DVR to record _Right Now_ for MacKenzie, and goes to tell Emma goodnight. 

"I like having MacKenzie here," Emma says. 

"You do?" Will's glad, of course, but a little surprised, considering her lukewarm reaction to Will telling her they were going on a date.

"Yeah." Emma's curled up in bed, reading a book, and she puts it down to look at him. "She's nice."

"Yeah," Will says. "She's nice." It's an understatement, but that's about as much detail as he feels comfortable sharing with his daughter. 

"Is she your girlfriend?"

"I don't know," he says honestly. It's a weird conversation, but he feels like he can be up front about this much. "We haven't really talked about that."

"Okay." Emma goes back to reading her book, and Will leans over to kiss her hair before going to his room.

MacKenzie's in his bed, blankets drawn up to her chin against the chill--and asleep, which is slightly disappointing, but he knows she's tired. Every night for the last two weeks, she's mentioned working late, and that on top of the time difference between the east and west coasts has done her in. Will strips down to his boxers and slides in bed with her; she's warm and he presses against her back, curling close. She's wearing something soft and silky and he skims his fingers lightly over it as he slides his arm around her waist.

"I fell asleep," she murmurs, shifting back against him, and her voice is thick with sleep. He's not quite sure she's even fully awake.

"It's okay," he whispers. "Go back to sleep."

She relaxes against him and doesn't say anything else, and her soft, regular breathing tells him she's slid back into sleep again. It takes Will longer to fall asleep; he's become used to sleeping alone, and the warmth and softness of her body pressed against him is a turn-on that's difficult to ignore. But this is good. The one time they've been together was hurried, out of necessity, and this is something they haven't had. He breathes her in in the dark for a little while, and eventually lets himself fall deeply asleep.

Normally, Will is an early riser--out of necessity, because of the farm--but in the morning he isn't woken by his alarm, but by the feel of MacKenzie's soft, warm mouth on his neck and her even warmer hand wrapped around his dick. He stifled a groan, mindful even when he's only half-awake that his daughter is across the hall, and reaches for MacKenzie.

"Good morning," she whispers, and as Will pries his eyes open he sees her hair rumpled from sleep and a playful glint in her eyes. The soft, silky thing he felt her wearing last night turns out to be dark blue and the thin silk hugs her breasts beautifully. "I wanted to fuck you last night," she whispers. "You could have woken me."

"You were exhausted. I wanted to let you sleep." He slides his hands up her thighs and over her hips and discovers she isn't wearing underwear; he cups her ass and eases her on top of him and she pushes back into his hands, sighing a little. "Sleep well?"

"Wonderful." MacKenzie slides her hands over his chest and grinds her hips a little against him; he's still wearing his boxers, but the thin fabric does a poor job of masking her warmth or the friction she's working up and he struggles to keep quiet. "Do you have to be up soon?"

"In a little while," he murmurs. "We have time." Will eases her off him and onto her back; he pushes off his boxers and she pulls him close, wrapping her arms and legs around him, and he allows it for a little while, kissing her, playing with her hair, indulging in all the little things they didn't have time for the last time they were together. Then he shifts down her body, nuzzling against her skin and at her breasts through the thin silk. He catches her nipple in his mouth and sucks lightly, making her whimper, and he reaches up to press his fingers against her lips--he doesn't want Emma to hear them and get upset or uncomfortable. He badly wants this long weekend to go well for all of them.

MacKenzie gets the hint and smothers her whimper against his hand and then her own, when Will slides his fingers away and moves down her body, pushing the blue silk up over her hips. MacKenzie spreads her thighs wide and swallows down a soft whine as Will presses his mouth to her cunt and he's gentle, at first, learning the taste and feel of her, learning how she wants to be touched. She pushes against his face, greedy, and he sucks at her clit, teasing it with his tongue. "Please, Will," she whispers, her voice as small as she can make it and so maddeningly desperate, her hands gripping at the sheets, and he works his tongue in tight little circles against her clit until she comes hard and bucks her hips against his face. MacKenzie pulls blindly at him, tugging him to her, and he pushes up on his hands and catches her mouth in a hard kiss that's as much to muffle her whimpers as it is to smother the groan he tries to hold back when he slides into her. His thrusts are slow until she wraps those long, long legs around him and urges him deeper, harder, and then he forgets about being careful or quiet as he loses himself in her, coming until he feels like he can't breathe and she wraps herself around him as much as she can.

" _Fuck_ ," he whispers, and MacKenzie laughs softly, sliding her fingers through his hair.

"Are you awake, now?" she teases. 

"God, yes." He catches her mouth in a kiss that's slow and tender, and she responds with what feels like her whole body, shifting beneath him to arch up and wrap around him. "Shit. I don't want to get up."

"Then don't." She's still sliding her fingers through his hair--petting him, essentially--and hell if he doesn't like that almost as much as the sex. "Just stay with me for a little while?"

So they stay tangled together in bed for a while, bodies sticky with sweat and come and Will realizes he doesn't even care. The last couple of months he's gotten to know her so much better through their late-night conversations and endless email chains, but it's the physical contact he's been craving, the affection and the tenderness, and now he can't get enough of it. He eases onto his side and she throws her leg over his hip, dragging her body close to him, and he skims his fingertips over her skin, taking the time they couldn't take before. 

"This is dangerous," he murmurs, sliding his fingers under the line of her jaw.

"Why?"

Will cups her cheek, a touch so soft he's almost not touching her at all. "Because I'm falling in love with you." Maybe it isn't fair to say it when they have a whole fucking continent separating them, but the words just fall out of his mouth before he can stop them--it's too late to take it back, so he's going to own it, whatever happens now.

Her expression softens and she closes her eyes, tilting her face into his touch. "Oh, Will," she says softly, and there's enough feeling in her voice that he doesn't need her to say it back to him. 

The way she kisses him is enough.

*****

He's nervous about the day, if only because his sisters and their families are coming over. His brother is spending Thanksgiving with his wife's family this year, but Mary and Susan and their husbands and kids will show up here for dinner, like they do every year, and he's afraid they'll read more into what's going on with him and MacKenzie than they're ready for. He puts the turkey in to roast before he goes out to see to the cows, and when he comes back, MacKenzie and Emma are sitting at the kitchen table with MacKenzie's laptop, as she explains to Emma how they get news from the wire reports.

"Anything happening?" he asks. MacKenzie is dressed in soft brown slacks and a honey-colored sweater, and Will is acutely aware that he smells like cow, so he hangs back a little, keeping his distance.

"China has announced targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions," MacKenzie answers.

"And there's a guy in Hong Kong who has a Facebook group and everybody in the group says they're going to kill themselves on December 21st," Emma chimes in, pointing at the screen. "I guess the police are trying to find them or something."

"That's… cheerful," Will says, wondering when Emma got interested in the news. "I recorded _Right Now_ last night for you, MacKenzie. I'm going to go shower, but if you want I can--"

"I'll do it," Emma says. "I want Mac to tell me about her show. It sounds fun."

MacKenzie and Emma go off to watch _Right Now_ and it gives Will the strangest feeling to see Emma warming to her--it's a strange feeling, but a good one, too, and he tries not to read too much into it even if he's glad they're getting along. 

His sisters show up in the early afternoon, bringing more food with them than they can ever possibly eat--their arrangement is that Will makes the turkey and stuffing and they bring everything else, including dessert, since Will's baking is notoriously bad--and proceed to take over the kitchen. Will is happy to let them, retreating to the living room with his brothers-in-law to watch football, but it isn't long before Susan manages to corner him, just as he knew she would.

"I've been saying you need to meet someone," Susan chides him. "You've been alone way too long, you and Emma in this big old house with just the two of you. MacKenzie's just lovely."

"We're just--okay, I guess we're a little more than friends, but it's not a big deal," he says. "She lives in New York. She produces that news show, _Right Now with Elliot Hirsch._ We probably won't get to see each other much--this is the first time I've seen her since this summer. Try not to read into it, okay? We're just… seeing where it goes." He realizes he really doesn't like talking about this with his sister, as much as he loves her--not when he hasn't really had a chance to talk to MacKenzie about exactly where their relationship is going. He doesn't want a label put on it.

Mercifully, Susan doesn't hound him much more about his relationship with MacKenzie; nor does she seem to hound MacKenzie about it, either. Mary doesn't give him the third degree, but after dinner she does ask MacKenzie when she plans to visit again, which gets to be a little uncomfortable until Emma suggests that maybe MacKenzie can visit for Christmas, and that is enough of an answer to satisfy his sisters.

"Your sisters are lovely," MacKenzie says, late that night when they're curled up in bed together. They're in the drowsy afterglow of fantastic sex, but Will, at least, is resisting sleep, and he senses she is too. "They really seem to want you to be happy."

"They do," he says. "Sometimes they're kind of nosy and pushy, but they mean well and they liked Claire. I don't know. I sort of looked after them when we were kids, and now they feel like they have to look after me and Emma since Claire died."

"How did you look after them?"

Will sighs, sliding his fingers lightly through her hair as he thinks about how to put the words together. They've grown so close over the last couple of months that he forgets there are still some things she doesn't know about him. "My father was an alcoholic," he says quietly. "He wasn't a good man. He hit my mother, he hit them--or at least he did, until I was old enough to hit him back."

MacKenzie is quiet for a minute before asking, "How old were you when you did that?"

"Fifth grade," he answers. "I cracked a bottle of Dewar's across his face."

She sighs and rests her head against Will's chest and he holds her close, grateful for the contact. "Where is he now?"

"Don't know," he says. "He left my mother when I was in college and I've only seen him a few times since then. He showed up after Emma was born, after Claire died. If I never saw him again, I'd be okay with that."

MacKenzie shifts closer, wrapping her arm around him and fitting her body close to his, and Will is glad for that and for the fact that she doesn't say anything. She doesn't say _I'm sorry_ or _you're better off without him_ or anything else that might be meant well but come out like a platitude. She's just _there_ , listening to him, and that means more to Will than he can say.

*****

The rest of the weekend goes by far too quickly for all of them. MacKenzie and Emma go shopping the day after Thanksgiving and when they return, Emma models some of her new purchases--a pair of boots, a new sweater, a purse--and Will's reminded, again, how fast Emma is moving from little girl to young woman and how he isn't ready for this.

They spend Saturday at the stadium, watching the Ducks beat the Oregon State Beavers. The game is known as the Civil War, but there's nothing civil about it, especially not in the crowd; the three of them are squished together in the endzone seats, below the jumbotron, eating hotdogs and drinking hot chocolate and wearing every scrap of green and yellow left in the house. Will has to explain most of the game to MacKenzie ("I don't know why Americans call this _football_ when the players hardly ever use their feet to move the ball," she complains,) but he doesn't care; he decides that MacKenzie cheering on one side of him and Emma on the other while the Ducks win 37-33 is one of the best things in the world.

When he takes MacKenzie to the airport on Sunday morning, Emma goes with them, because she wants to see MacKenzie off, too.

Will realizes then that he isn't the only person that's falling in love with MacKenzie.

*****

_I graduated from law school in May, passed the bar, and got a job in Portland by August. By December I'd saved enough money that I could afford to buy a little diamond ring. It wasn't the biggest one in the store, but I didn't care. It was a ring and I paid cash for it. It was the first major purchase I'd ever made in my life._

_We'd already talked about it a little bit, about getting married sometime in the future. We'd talked about it enough that I didn't think she would say no, but I wasn't one-hundred-percent-sure that she'd say yes, either. I visited her at her parents' house on Christmas Eve. I had another present for her that she opened in front of her parents. I don't remember now what it was. I saved the ring until later, when it was just us, because I didn't think it was a thing I should ask in front of other people._

_She said yes, which is probably not a surprise to you, even though it was a surprise to me. And from that Christmas, up until the day she died, that ring never came off her finger._

_When your mother made the decision to stop her chemo treatments, she made me promise to save the ring for you after she died so that you could have it later, if you wanted it. I've been keeping it for you, and when I give you these letters, your mother's story, I'll give you your mother's ring, too. She wanted you to have it. And I want you to have it._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas in New York.

_This is how your mother told me the news about you: It was right before Christmas, and she gave me a little box that didn't feel like it had anything in it. It was so light, it felt empty. I must have given her a dumb look because she said, "Go on, open it." So I did._

_And inside the box was a little note that said, "I have a present for you but it isn't ready yet. It's not big enough. Right now it's about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. But in August, it'll be ready, and you can have it then."_

_Because I'm me, I didn't catch on. I looked at the note, looked at her, looked at the note, and I still didn't get it. "You're so thick," she said, and laughed, then she leaned over and whispered in my ear, and THEN I got it._

_So if you ever have a big surprise for me, you have to spell it out. I can't get hints._

*****

Will has never been outside the state of Oregon at Christmas. Hell, most of the time, he hasn't even been outside Eugene at Christmas, except for those few years he and Claire lived in Portland (and even then, they came back to visit family). So New York City feels like another fucking planet, with its tall buildings and crowded sidewalks and endless, endless traffic.

MacKenzie invited them to come out for Christmas right after she left at Thanksgiving, and Will figures if they're going to visit, this is the best time; the cows aren't breeding or calving, Emma's not in school, and there are people around who can keep an eye on the farm for him while they're gone. For about five seconds, Will considers having Emma stay with her grandparents while he goes to New York on his own, but then he tells Emma they're going to visit and her face lights up like it's Christmas already and he immediately dismisses any thought of leaving her behind.

From the moment MacKenzie meets them at the airport to the moment they get out of the car at MacKenzie's apartment, Emma has her face glued to the window, taking everything in. Even in the apartment, the first thing Emma does is go out onto the balcony and take in the view, even though it's damn near freezing. 

"It's so _big_ ," she says, when Will tries to convince her to come inside. "I'm never going to see it all." 

"You'll just have to visit again," MacKenzie tells her, a sentiment that Will can get on board with. 

MacKenzie took part of the day off to meet them at the airport, but after they grab an early dinner, she goes in to work and invites them to come along with her for a tour. She introduces them to her staff, gives them a tour of the studio and the control room and the bullpen (a term Will finds hilarious), and lets them sit in on the final rundown meeting of the day. Will isn't so much interested in the substance of the meeting as he is in the way MacKenzie runs it; she listens to them present their ideas, she chooses what she wants, and that's it. There's no arguing with her, no questioning her authority--a little from her anchor, but it's more collegial than challenging and he ends up agreeing to everything she wants in the end, anyway. It's fascinating to see her in her element.

She lets them sit in the back of the control room during the broadcast. Will sits in the back, anyway; Emma wants to follow MacKenzie around, which MacKenzie allows on the condition that she doesn't interrupt or touch anything. Emma says nothing, touches nothing, but looks at _everything_. Her eyes are wide and curious and she soaks everything up like a little sponge. Will can't remember a time when he's seen her be this interested in anything--and he can't remember the last time _he_ was this interested in anything, but he can't take his eyes off MacKenzie, as she keeps her fingers on the pulse of everything that's going on in the control room the way a good quarterback knows exactly where all his receivers are and what they're doing.

It's after midnight when they finally leave the AWM building. Emma's been wound up all day with excitement, but she crashes hard in the car and falls asleep on Will's shoulder as they sit in traffic. "Someone's tired," MacKenzie says fondly.

"Yeah," Will says. "We were up early this morning for the flight, and she didn't sleep at all last night anyway. She was too excited about this trip."

"I'm glad she's having a good time, so far."

"Me, too. She really liked seeing you at work. I'm not sure how we'll top that." The driver pulls up in front of MacKenzie's building, and Will nudges Emma a little. "Wake up, kiddo," he says. "You're too tall for me to carry into the house anymore." He used to do that, when she was little, especially when they lived in Portland and took her to do something fun for the day, like visit OMSI or the zoo or take a day trip to the coast; Emma would fall asleep in the car and instead of waking her, Will would scoop her up out of the backseat and carry her upstairs. She would never wake up when he did this, and he'd deposit her on her bed and Claire would ease off her shoes and cover her with a blanket and they'd just leave her there until she woke in the morning.

It takes a little more prodding, but eventually Emma wakes enough that she can get out of the car, though Will keeps his arm around her until they're upstairs, and then she disappears into MacKenzie's guest room with a murmured, "Night, Daddy. Night, Mac."

"I've missed her," MacKenzie says, and slides her arms around him. "And I've missed you, too."

Will sighs and holds her close. "Missed you." It feels good to hold her again but it's bittersweet, too, because he knows it's temporary--again. 

She leans up and cups her face in his hands, kissing him lightly. "Come to bed with me," she murmurs, and he does.

*****

The morning of Christmas Eve is bitterly cold, but MacKenzie's apartment is snug and warm and so is she, curled up against his chest. Her bed is comfortable and the comforter is as fluffy as a cloud and he'd like to stay in bed and enjoy both the view from the enormous window by the bed and her long, smooth legs tangled up in his, but MacKenzie is off work through the weekend and has planned a day for the three of them that (unfortunately, in Will's opinion) does not involve sleeping late.

Will makes breakfast for the three of them in MacKenzie's gleaming kitchen (which obviously gets very little use; she's told him more than once that she can't really cook) and then they head out for some last-minute Christmas shopping. The sidewalks and stores are crowded as hell and there are far more people than he could ever actually want to be around, but there are Christmas decorations everywhere and cheesy Christmas music coming from every speaker in every direction and he's actually, if reluctantly, finding himself in a Christmas mood. 

He's dreaded every Christmas since Claire died, because it never felt like Christmas with just him and Emma--and he never felt he could make Emma's Christmases good enough by himself--but he isn't dreading this one.

In the afternoon, they finish decorating MacKenzie's Christmas tree (which she acquired two weeks ago and hasn't had time to do anything with) and wrap their presents, then they go out for dinner and the late showing of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. It's fantastic, if a little over the top for Will's taste. Emma is enraptured and decides that she's going to start dance lessons when she gets back to Oregon.

"You took dance when you were five and hated it," Will reminds her.

"That was different," Emma informs him. "I was five. I didn't know any better back then."

Christmas morning hasn't been a get-up-early affair since Emma was ten and discovered her Christmas presents hidden under Will's bed three days before Christmas. (That wasn't the way Will wanted to break the there's-no-such-thing-as-Santa news to her, but it had been less of a deal for her than he thought it might be and was relieved.) So it's a relaxed affair, with Will making breakfast for them again and Emma, dressed in candy-cane-striped pajamas, distributing presents in her self-appointed role of Santa's Helper. She wants MacKenzie to open her present from her first--a photograph of the three of them at Thanksgiving, in a frame that Emma made herself with liberal use of glitter and ribbons. MacKenzie assures her that she loves it, makes no comment on the glitter, and places the photograph on her mantel beside one of her parents. 

MacKenzie's gift to Emma is a small pair of pearl earrings and a delicate, matching necklace. "Because every girl should have pearls," MacKenzie tells her, and Emma is happy to learn they're real pearls and the earrings have gold posts because she's allergic to nickel and can't wear most jewelry. (Will mostly doesn't know anything about jewelry, but he knows this much, because Emma inherited Claire's nickel allergy.) Emma puts the earrings in right away and keeps admiring them in the mirror every so often through the rest of the day. Will gave Emma the majority of her presents before they left Oregon, just because they were too bulky to haul back and forth on a plane, but she has some smaller things from him to open, including an iTunes gift card and some new clothes, all of which are met with approval.

Will's a little nervous about his gift to MacKenzie. She gives him a dark blue sweater that will quite possibly be the softest piece of clothing he's ever owned. "It matches your eyes," she tells him fondly, after he puts it on and she sees him in it, and he likes that, a lot--but he's not sure if she'll like what he's given her. It was a pain in the ass to get on the plane and he was worried it would get ruined somehow, but it made it in one piece and now there's nothing to do but watch her open it.

"Oh, Billy, it's beautiful," she says, and he's so pleased she likes it he can't even be irritated by the nickname. He took a picture of her grandfather's house one late summer afternoon, when the light was just right, and later he asked his sister Mary to turn it into a painting, because she's damn good at it.

"Thought you might like it, since you can't visit much."

"It's beautiful."

"Aunt Mary did it," Emma chimes in, bouncing over to peer at the painting over MacKenzie's shoulder. "She's always painting stuff. It's like she got the sun and put it right on the paper. Or canvas. Or whatever that stuff is."

"I have to find the perfect place to put it," MacKenzie says. "Thank you." She leans over and kisses Will's cheek, and Emma makes gagging noises in their general direction until Will chases her down and ruffles her hair. MacKenzie temporarily places the painting on her dining room table until she can decide on a permanent home for it.

There was talk, at some point, about having an actual Christmas dinner, but none of them really care about it when what they would rather do is lie around in pajamas, eat junk food, and watch Christmas movies, so that's what they do. It's a movie marathon, beginning with _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ (which Emma has memorized) and continuing through a line of Christmas classics that ends with _A Christmas Story_ \--which is Will's perennial favorite, and when he learns that MacKenzie has never actually seen it before, he insists on watching it again. He's not really sure why he loves that damn movie so much. It isn't as though it reminds him very much of his own childhood, but he loves it and always has.

And it's good, this--just sitting around and _being_ , laughing at things he's seen a hundred times, doing nothing but enjoying the company of the two people he cares about more than anything else. There's nowhere to be, nothing else that _has_ to be done right now except be with them, and if he thinks about that too much he's going to get fucking choked up, so instead of thinking about it, he just goes with it.

*****

Emma crashes late in the evening from a junk food sugar high and too much excitement, and Will sends her off to bed. MacKenzie slides closer to him on the couch and he eases his arm around her. They've tired of Christmas movies, finally, so the television is now off, and the only light is the soft glow of the Christmas tree in the corner and a few candles MacKenzie lit sometime around sundown. It's cozy and warm, and MacKenzie's relaxed against him; he idly drags his fingers through her hair, just enjoying the chance to touch her.

"I have another present for you," he tells her, after a few moments of this.

"Hm?" She's half-asleep against his shoulder, but she shifts to sit up a little straighter at the mention of a gift. "Another present? Really?"

"It's nothing big," he says, suddenly a little embarrassed--she's so eager at the idea of another gift from him, and he doesn't want to get her hopes up because it's nothing fancy. "It's in an envelope, tucked into the back of the tree. Go look."

MacKenzie slides off the couch and goes to look behind the tree, coming back with the small, thin plastic case in a red envelope. "It feels like a CD," she says, sitting beside him again and tucking her feet beneath her.

"It is," he says. "I made it a few weeks ago. Don't listen to it now," he adds. "It's just… some stuff I wanted to put down for you."

"A mix CD?" she asks, with a little smile. "That's sweet."

"Not really," he says. "Not a mix CD, I mean. I play guitar. Used to a lot more, haven't much lately, really, the last few years." He coughs, clears his throat, and adds, "Picked it up again a little while ago, but I'm still a little rusty. Still remember a few things, though, so I put them down on a CD for you. So you can, you know. Listen later. If you want."

"That's really sweet," MacKenzie says softly, and it's a different tone than before--subtly so, but enough that it warms him inside and out. "Are you sure you want me to listen to it later? Not now?"

"No, not now." He laughs a little and shrugs. "I mean--I guess you could, but…" Will likes singing and playing the guitar, but he doesn't like listening to himself at _all_. It feels pretentious.

"I'll save it until you're gone," MacKenzie decides. She'd slipped the CD from its envelope, studying the names of the tracks he'd printed inside, but now she slides it back into the envelope. "So I can hear your voice when you're back on the west coast." She puts the envelope on the end table and slides into his lap, looping her arms around his neck. "How was your Christmas? Good?"

"Mmhmm," he says, sliding his hands down her back to rest low on her hips. "Very good. Good presents, good company."

"I'm glad." She brushes her lips against his, light and tender. "I'm having a fantastic Christmas. I'm glad you're here--you and Emma both. It's nice to be able to spend a holiday like this."

Will sighs a little and drags his lips along her neck to keep himself from saying what he wants to say, which is something about how he wishes they could figure out a way that they didn't have to go weeks without seeing each other--but they've been together for not-quite-four months and he doesn't feel like he has the right, really, to say something like that when they haven't even put a name on what it is they're doing. It feels like more than dating, but because of the distance between them, he doesn't know how it can ever be anything else but that.

He _wants_ more than that, though.

"You're quiet," MacKenzie murmurs. She slides her fingers through his hair, playing lightly at the back of his neck. "Something wrong?"

"Just thinking," he tells her.

"That sounds ominous." She tilts her head a little, brushing her nose against his. "It's Christmas. Supposed to be peace and joy and visions of sugarplums and all that."

Will rubs his hands lightly along her back, a small, lazy movement. "I know. And it is. I just don't want it to be over."

"It isn't," she murmurs. "Not yet. You still have a couple of days before you go back." She slips her hands from his hair and cups his face, and he _loves_ when she looks at him like this, all intent and careful and like he's the only thing in her world at the moment. "I don't want to waste a minute of it."

"Me either."

MacKenzie leans in, not quite kissing him; she lingers close for a moment that in some ways is even more intimate than a kiss. "I'm so happy when I'm with you," she murmurs. "No one's ever made me feel like this."

Will has to kiss her then, because if he doesn't he'll say something stupid and he desperately wants not to fuck this up. He kisses her and she sighs against his mouth; she drops her hands to rest against his chest, her fingers curling into his shirt. "Come to bed with me," she murmurs, and slides off his lap, tugging him along with her.

Being with MacKenzie makes him feel _good_ \--not just in the way having sex in general feels good, but that amazing feeling that comes with being close to someone who _means_ something. She takes him into her bed and for a little while, she's all he can think about; for the next little while, his world begins and ends with her.

"You're still quiet," she says, some time later, when they're tangled together in her bed. "Want to tell me why?" She slides her hand across his chest and then rests her head there, curling against him.

Will slides his fingers through her hair. "Because I'm not ready to go home," he says quietly. They're leaving on Sunday, so he can get back to the farm and MacKenzie can get back to work. "I mean, I'm ready to get back--I love the farm--but I'm not ready to leave you here."

"I'm not ready for you to go," she murmurs, and shifts to press her lips against his chest, over his heart. God, he fucking _aches_ for her, and the words _come back with me, come back with us, for good,_ are on the tip of his tongue but he swallows them back because he knows that's not going to work. He'll never leave his farm and he knows she's never going to leave her career (he wouldn't, if he was her--she's too fucking good at it). So Will tips her onto her back and kisses her so he won't say the things that he knows it's pointless to say.

*****

_I used to play the guitar a lot when you were little. Before you got the hang of walking, you'd pull up on your mother's leg and hold on, and if we sang to you, or I played the guitar, you'd do this little wiggly hip-shaking thing, trying to dance to the music. After a while you'd forget that you didn't know how to balance yet, and you'd let go, maybe to clap your hands or something, and down you'd go, right on your butt. You never cried, though. You just got right back up and tried again. And then it wasn't long before you were balancing and walking and I've been chasing after you ever since._

_I think you got that from your mom. I've never been good at getting right back up and trying again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one was a little short. I've been very stressed lately so I haven't had as much time to write as I wanted, but I did want to put up this little bit so no one thinks it's abandoned. The next update may be a few weeks, as it's coming up on end of term and I have a lot of grading to do. Thanks for understanding...and hope you enjoy.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a content warning for nonspecific mentions of Will's memories of child abuse toward the end of the chapter. If this may be a trigger for you, please be careful.

_Your grandfather--Claire's father--is a big donor to the university. The Taylor family always has been; there's a sports field and a science building named for them. Who knows what else. I didn't know it when I started dating your mother. Which just goes to show you how oblivious I can be, sometimes. There's a big yellow_ Taylor _stamp on the back of three out of five tractors and combines on farms all over Washington, Oregon, and northern California, and two of them on our own farm, but it never occured to me that Claire Taylor and the Taylor Farm and Tractor company were connected, at least until she took me home to meet her parents._

_You have probably caught on by now to the fact that your grandparents and I don't get along. Well, we get along, but we've never been close, and that has to do with a lot of things that are water under the bridge and are in no way your fault. But make no mistake about it: They loved your mother, and they love you. You're their only grandchild and you mean a lot to them._

*****

 

Winter in western Oregon tends to hover just above freezing, only dipping below on the rare cloudless nights that the wind turns bitter, but there are stretches of weeks at a time where it rains and rains and the sun doesn't seem to come out at all, making it seem colder than it really is. Will grew up with this, so he never minded it until these last few years. It's when he feels Claire's loss most acutely, and this year, he's missing MacKenzie, too. 

They talk on the phone often, and email each other nearly every day--Emma and MacKenzie talk regularly, too, and it's another thing Will loves about her, the recognition that he and Emma are kind of a package deal--but MacKenzie is swamped with work and he can't leave the farm for long, as it gets closer to calving time, because the cows need more and more attention. So except for a couple of brief weekends in the spring, they don't get to see each other again until summer. It's not nearly enough. 

It's never enough.

Will makes plans for her visit, late that summer. Real plans, ones that involve the two of them spending some time together doing something other than puttering around his house or hers. She's wrangled an entire week away from work and Will wants to make it worth her while. It occurs to him that it's been a year they've been doing this thing--he can't really call it dating, because while he sees her less than he would if she was in town, it feels more serious than just dating--and he wants to do something special. Most of the week, they're at home with Emma, and Will admires the way MacKenzie makes the effort to include her. (It makes him happy that they get along so well.) Toward the end of the week, though, Emma goes to spend the night with her friend Megan from school, and Will takes MacKenzie on a short trip to the coast.

It's a two-hour drive, if they drive straight through, but there's no need to hurry, so Will takes his time. There's plenty to see along the way. MacKenzie makes them a picnic lunch, ("I can't cook, but I _can_ make sandwiches," she teases,) and they stop for lunch at Heceta Head, a lighthouse along the coast. It's only about ninety minutes from the farm, where it was a toasty eighty degrees when they left, but it's substantially cooler and windier at the coast, enough to make them both reach for jackets and for MacKenzie to pull her hair back into a ponytail to keep it from whipping into her eyes. They eat their lunch at a wooden picnic table in the sun and watch some kids on the beach throw frisbees and balls for their dogs to catch, and afterward they walk the little trail up the hill to the lighthouse atop the cliff. The path twists and turns up the hill past a white-painted house that used to belong to the lighthouse keeper and then higher, up to the small red-and-white lighthouse itself.

There's a fence along the edge of the cliff, but Will puts his arm around MacKenzie's waist anyway as she looks at the ocean below. It's a long fucking way down; a steep, rocky cliff with waves crashing hard on the base. "I've never seen the Pacific ocean," MacKenzie tells him. "At least not in person. I've seen it on television, of course."

"Well, here it is," Will says. They saw small glimpses of the ocean on the drive up, since the highway runs mostly parallel to the coastline, but this is the best view they've had so far. From this point at the top of the cliff, the northward view is obstructed by a rocky outcropping, but they can see far to the south, far enough that the cars on the road hugging the tree-covered coastline look like tiny toys.

"It's lovely," MacKenzie says. "Thanks for bringing me."

"There's a lot of things I wish I could show you," Will says. But it goes without saying that they don't have enough time. There's never enough time, and it's been frustrating him for months.

"I know, honey." MacKenzie knows what he means about not enough time without him having to say it.

He doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

 

*****

They take their time on the road past the lighthouse, to the charming little hotel Will's picked out, up on the northern side of a friendly little town on the coast. Their room is spacious but cozy, with a gas fireplace in one corner and a roomy hot tub tucked into another corner in a way that promises both a relaxing soak and a spectacular view of the ocean. Will drops their bags on the sofa and they head out for dinner, walking downtown to fantastic little seafood place he's been to before. It feels colder here than it did at the lighthouse, and MacKenzie holds onto his arm as they walk, shivering in the breeze off the ocean. The restaurant is crowded, but they don't have to wait too long for a seat, and then there are piping-hot bowls of clam chowder and oyster stew to take the chill off. Those are followed by heaping plates of fried shrimp and cod and calamari, and they finish by splitting a plate of marionberry cobbler with homemade ice cream. MacKenzie jokes that she's eaten so much that Will's going to have to roll her back to the hotel, but she steals the last bite of cobbler before snuggling up beside him in the booth.

On the way back to the hotel, they take a detour to walk along the beach. They take a twisted little path that cuts through the dunes down to the shore, then shed their shoes to walk along the sand. MacKenzie is particular about where she steps. "I wouldn't want to step on a washed-up jellyfish," she informs him, then promptly screams loud enough to scare Will into grabbing her around the waist, dragging her away from whatever it is.

"Are you hurt?"

"Y--no. I'm fine. I just, I felt something, and I thought it was a… well, it could have been a jellyfish."

Will kneels and brushes the sand from her bare feet, checking for injuries, and seeing none, looks around to determine what scared her. It turns out to be a piece of plastic grocery bag, washed up on the shore and half buried in the sand. He pulls it free and shoves it in his pocket to toss into the next trash can they come across.

"It _could_ have been a jellyfish," she repeats defensively, and her face is irresistably sweet to Will, so much so that he has to kiss away the slight pout that's turned down the corners of her mouth. When he releases her, the pout is gone and her cheeks are a deeper pink than they were just from the ocean breeze that's whipped her soft brown hair into a mass of tangles.

"I love you, Will." MacKenzie cups his face in her hands; her palms and fingers are chilly, but she's looking at him in a way that's warming him from the inside out so he hardly notices. "So much that whenever we're not together, all I can think about is the next time I'll see you." She sighs, strokes his cheek, but her eyes never leave his. "You're too far away."

" _You're_ too far away." There's a whole fucking country between them, and it's becoming harder and harder to say goodbye to her each time their visits end. "What are we going to do about that?"

"I don't know," she says. "I just know that every time I kiss you goodbye, I wish I didn't have to. I don't know what to do. I don't _know_." Her voice breaks a little on the last word. It makes Will's heart ache because he doesn't know what to do, either, and something has to give. 

"I can't ask you to give up your work," he says. He might, if it was just a job for her--but he's seen her in her element and it isn't _just a job_ for her. She's damn good at it, and he knows she wouldn't be happy doing anything else.

"And I can't ask you to give up your farm," she replies, and her eyes well up with tears. "But I want to wake up with you in the mornings and go to bed at night, and I want to ask Emma how school was every afternoon and not just on Skype. I want to take her shopping and help her with her homework, and I want to sit on the porch and smoke with you after dinner." She's breathing hard now, fighting back tears. "But it's never going to happen, is it?"

What the fuck is he supposed to say to that, when everything she's saying is everything he wants but knows they can't have? "I don't know," he says, and he hates that that's the only thing he can say because MacKenzie visibly crumples into silent, wracking sobs when he says it. Putting his arms around her and holding her close only makes her cry harder, but he can't let go, not until she's cried herself out and the sobs turn to shivering from the cold. 

He pulls off his jacket and drapes it over top of the jacket she's already wearing and keeps an arm around her, steering her back to the hotel. The twisty path that cuts through the dune seems a lot more steep going up than it did coming down, and they stop to catch their breath a couple of times. MacKenzie's quiet, the only sound she makes is the lingering hiccup from the aftermath of hard crying. She's still shivering when they get back to their hotel room, so he turns on the fireplace and fills the tub with the hottest water they can stand.

MacKenzie peels off her layers of jackets and shirt and jeans in front of the fireplace, and the soft, flickering light makes her skin glow for a moment before she slides into the tub. "I'm still cold," she says, extending a hand to him in invitation. He joins her in the tub, sliding behind her so he can wrap his arms and legs around her and she leans back against his chest with a sigh. They're quiet for a long time, the only sound in the room the faint hiss of the gas logs in the fireplace and the ripple of the bubbles in the tub. Will's mentally replaying their conversation on the beach, the sound of her voice breaking when she said _I don't know_ , and he wants to know. More than anything, wants to figure it out. He wants to make it work. Because no matter how hard it is to see her once in a while, it would be even harder to never see her at all.

He brushes his lips against MacKenzie's temple and she sighs, shifting in his arms so she's half facing him, her cheek resting against his shoulder just above the waterline. "I want to find a way to make this work," he tells her. "It's going to be messy and we aren't going to figure it out right away, but I want to work on it. If we have to give some things up, then it's what we have to do, but I'm not giving you up."

MacKenzie sits up a little, bracing her arm against the side of the tub so she can meet his eyes. "What are you saying, Will?"

"I'm saying I'm going to do whatever it takes to be with you," he says. "Some people never find the person they love. Most people only find that person once. I've been lucky enough to find it twice and I'm not going to be stupid enough to throw that away with both hands when I'm so fucking lucky to have you. I was prepared for it just to be me and Emma and I was okay with that and then you showed up and it's all wrong when I'm not with you and I--"

MacKenzie presses her fingers to his lips, cutting him off, and shifts her leg over him so that she's in his lap. "You're the best man I've ever known," she murmurs, and her eyes are watering again but she's smiling, and Will feels like his heart is about to burst with everything he feels for her. She presses her body against his, slick and warm, and kisses him deeply, and all that he can't put into words to explain to her how he feels about her is in this kiss. 

Eventually they leave the tub for the bed, and the warmth from the fireplace feels like a luxury on their drying skins. MacKenzie pushes him back onto the bed and climbs over him, and he's acutely aware of every bit of her--the fullness of her breasts, the flat plane of her stomach, the curves of her hips--that his hands skim over. "Come here," he murmurs, gripping her hips to push her upward and she gets the idea, sliding up his body until she's straddling his face, bracing her arms against the headboard. He parts her with his tongue and she whimpers, spreading her thighs so she's more open to him, and his mouth and nose are full of the taste and scent of her. He can't get enough. He's not playing around; it's the first time they've truly been alone together, and he wants to take advantage of that by making her come as many times as he can without the inhibiting need to be quiet. Will presses his hands against her ass, holding her close to his mouth so she can't shift away from his tongue. She whines and squirms and pushes back against his hands, but he holds her firm against his mouth and focuses all his attention on that one sweet little spot until her whole body tenses with her orgasm.

"Jesus Christ, Will," she pants, leaning heavily on the headboard for a moment until she can move again. 

"We could do this every night," he tells her, when she eases off his face and down his body. 

She kisses his mouth, his neck, works her way lower. "Nothing would make me happier." Her fingers play against his chest for a moment, sliding through the hair there before tracing along his stomach--he flinches there, a little ticklish, so she doesn't linger, moving lower to wrap around his dick as she settles between his thighs. Her hands are warm and soft from their soak in the tub and it only takes a couple of strokes to make him fully hard. Her mouth is warm, too, when she slides it onto his dick, and he has to keep himself from thrusting up into her mouth or he'll be done sooner than he wants. She's not playing around, which he supposes is his payback, and he's loving every minute of it. They've been together enough times that she knows just how far she can take him before she pulls back, and she does that now, over and over, bringing him right to the edge and then easing up again, her fingers circled firmly at the base of his dick and her mouth warm and tight along the shaft and head.

"God _damn_ it," he grunts, fingers pulling at the sheets in frustration.

MacKenzie laughs softly and draws her mouth off him. "Should I put you out of your misery?"

" _Yes,_ " he says desperately, followed by a quick, "No!" because he's not nearly done for the night but he's not a teenager anymore, either.

She laughs again, a warm and intimate sound, and slides her mouth onto his dick in a way that pulls a strangled little groan from his throat. Tongue and lips and fingers coordinated with just the right amount of warm, slick suction; he can't resist it and she doesn't let up until he's spilling hot and breathless into her mouth. Drawing her mouth off him slowly, she slides up his body again and murmurs, "Every night? Really?"

Will takes a moment to catch his breath, then tackles her, pushing onto her back on the bed. She shrieks in surprise and pushes against his chest, laughing; he kisses her hard but her laugh is contagious and eventually they both dissolve into giggles. "I love you," he says, interspersing the words with quick little kisses brushed against her lips. 

She raises her arms and loops them around his neck. "How much?"

"Can't really say." It's meant to come out flippant and teasing but ends up gruff because he realizes he can't quantify it. He loves her so much that sometimes he feels like he's drowning in it.

"Oh, honey." She slides her fingers through his hair and it's achingly tender and he wonders how it is they can shift from playful to serious so quickly. Then she grins up at him and they've shifted to playful again. Will's not sure he's built to cycle through so many feelings in such a short amount of time, but he loves her so he'll go with it. 

He's nowhere near ready to have another round just yet, but he can't seem to keep his hands off her in the meantime. He slides out of the circle of her arms and shifts down her body to cover her skin with kisses. She whines softly when he lingers at her breasts, pressing up into his touch, molding her body to his hands and mouth, and whines again when he pushes at her hip to tip her over onto her stomach. He slides her tangled hair off the back of her neck and kisses her there, and when he drags his lips down her spine she whimpers and gasps and presses her hips down into the bed. It's an unexpected reaction that only intensifies when he works his way down to her lower back and she swears softly, squirming against the bed in search of friction. 

Will sits up so he can trace the fingers of one hand along her spine and the other between her thighs. If he'd realized that touching her back like this turned her on this much he'd have done it a long time ago; she's slick and swollen and his fingers slip easily against her. She's beautiful like this, splayed out on her stomach with the glow of the firelight warming her skin and marking every curve with shadows, and it's enough to make him slowly harden again just from looking at her. She whimpers again, almost crying, and draws her knees underneath her body, thighs spread wide to give him more room for his hand. He presses a kiss to the base of her spine and slides both hands beneath her; for a moment he just plays with her, spreading and stroking until she huffs impatiently and he presses his fingers deep inside her. The sound she makes then--he's never heard anything like it, a sound of desperation and relief and blind _want_ that almost hurts to hear, but he knows that feeling of blind want very well because every nerve in his body is humming with it, too. He presses and strokes, presses and strokes, until her whole body shudders in climax and her body clenches around his fingers. Will slides his fingers out of her, gripping her hips to pull them up into him so he can press into her from behind and she pushes back hard, taking him as deeply as she can, over and over, and there's nothing like this feeling of wanting someone very badly who wants you just as much. When he finally comes it feels like it's going to go on and on forever and then he feels like if he stays upright another minute he's going to fall over; he doesn't quite collapse on her, but it's close. He feels wrung out and empty and then she crawls close to him, fitting to him wherever she can and that feeling of emptiness clicks away, like it shouldn't have been there in the first place.

They drop into an exhausted sleep only to wake before sunrise and reach for each other again. It's slow and tender and Will's not sure either of them are fully awake or that they even finish.The need to touch each other is as great as the need for sleep. 

"I've got you," he murmurs, and she sighs and drifts back to sleep again. 

They finally wake for good in late morning. Will feels slow and hungover, even though he didn't have so much as a beer the night before, and he wonders if it's possible to have an emotional hangover. MacKenzie looks worse than he feels, so he's careful with her as they shower and get breakfast and load the truck for the trip home. They had coffee at breakfast, but he stops at a little coffee place outside of town and gets them each an extra-large coffee with plenty of sugar. That helps, a little. Will feels somewhat more human by the time they get home.

When they step out of the truck back at the farm, the summer warmth hits Will in the face and it's an excellent reminder that they're back in reality, away from the chill of the coast. MacKenzie perks up a little then, and a little more when Emma gets home in early evening, and the three of them make dinner together and eat outside, at the table on the deck in back of the house. After dinner, Emma helps clear away the dishes and challenges them to a game of Mexican Train. She hasn't asked to play that dominoes game since she was eight, but she still whips them fairly easily and one game turns to ten. Emma wins eight of these and MacKenzie wins the other two, which makes Will feel slightly ganged-up on. 

But he doesn't really mind.

Later, Emma disappears upstairs to her computer, and Will and MacKenzie go outside to have a cigarette. MacKenzie has two, which Will finds a little unusual. He's the one with the bad habit, not her. She's restless, too, getting up from the swing to lean against the porch railing, then walking back and forth across the porch.

"Something bothering you?" he says, when he can't take her restlessness anymore. 

She lights another cigarette and breathes deeply. "Last night, when you said you wanted to work out a way for us to be together full time. Were you serious?"

"Of course I was," he says. "I wouldn't have said it if I wasn't." A small knot of apprehension coils in his stomach, and he shifts uncomfortably in the swing. "Why are you asking?"

"I just wanted to be sure," she says. She takes another long drag from the cigarette, then wipes her palms on her jeans. "Because if we're going to make some major changes, permanent changes, I want to do it right. I want to go into this with complete honesty."

"Okay." He doesn't know where she's going with this, but he feels the best thing is to just let her say whatever's on her mind. "I'm listening." 

MacKenzie walks a little ways down the porch and back again, fidgeting with her hair and her cigarette and anything else within reach. "When we first started seeing each other, I told you that I'd recently split up with my boyfriend, Brian."

"The guy that works for _Newsweek_ , right. I remember."

"When I left here last summer and went back to New York… a week later, he started calling me again. I missed you terribly and I didn't know when I'd get to see you again and I… I was lonely. And when he called me and told me he was sorry for how we split up, I… I sort of gave in and started seeing him again. But it didn't _mean_ anything," she adds quickly, her words coming more and more hurried, "because I didn't love him, or even like him very much, really, and then I came here for Thanksgiving and you told me you were falling in love with me and I realized I was falling in love with you too and the first thing I did when I got home was break up with him, and I haven't seen him or even talked to him since."

Will hears all of this, though he stopped really listening right around _I sort of gave in and started seeing him again._ The rest of what she says sounds like background noise humming in his ears and he doesn't take it all in. "You were with someone else?" he says, because he desperately needs her to clarify that he's misunderstood her and that wasn't what she was saying at all. He wants this to be some kind of hallucination and any minute now he's going to wake up and realize that he didn't hear that after all. "You were with someone else after we got together?"

"Only at the beginning," she says. "We hadn't--I didn't know how serious you and I were, I didn't even know when I'd get to see you again. I didn't realize how much I was going to _love_ you or how much I was going to love Emma. I didn't--"

"Don't," he cuts in. "Don't fucking talk about how much you love my daughter."

MacKenzie recoils as if he's hit her--God, he'd never hit a woman, and it makes him a little sick inside to see her reaction, but he can't be sorry for that now, not when he feels like his heart is spilling out into the floor. "Will--"

"It wasn't just a random hookup," Will says. "I wouldn't just--I didn't date anybody after my wife died because I didn't want to get attached, I didn't want Emma to get attached to someone and it not work out. Not after she lost her mother."

"I know, Will, and I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you--"

"So you went back to your ex boyfriend," he says. "Because he was there and I wasn't. But it's okay, right? Because you eventually broke up with him. Tell me, Mac, when you came out for Thanksgiving, did you tell him where you were going? Were you planning to spend the weekend fucking me and being friends with Emma and then go back and jump in bed with him when you got home?"

"I didn't realize I was in love with you!" Her voice breaks a little and Will hardens his heart because he can't hear it. He can't hear that sound and not crack into pieces. She reaches out for him and Will shrinks back, pushing himself out of the porch swing and away from her--she gasps as if he's punched her, instead of pushing himself away from her.

"I trusted you with--" His voice is unsteady and he takes a moment to force himself to pull it together. He can't ever remember feeling this betrayed, not since he was five and realized that your father isn't supposed to hit you after all, and it fucking hurts. "--with my family, with my daughter, with _me_ , I told you things…" Things he confided in her that weekend come back to him and he feels so, so stupid. 

"I'm _sorry_ ," she says. 

"I trusted you!"

"Daddy?" Emma pushes the screen door open, peering around it with wide eyes. Will guesses the sound of their argument brought her downstairs. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," he barks at her, and she flinches back in surprise. Will hates himself a little for speaking to her like that.

"Are you and Mac fighting?"

"It's nothing," he says again. "Go back upstairs."

"No," she says. "I want to know what's going on with you and Mac."

"We're just having a little disagreement," MacKenzie says, trying to make it diplomatic, but it only pisses Will off and he rounds on her.

"It is not just a 'little disagreement," he snaps at her, "and goddamn it, Emma, if you don't go back upstairs--"

It's the first time in his life he's ever seen his daughter look truly _scared_ of him before, and it makes Will's skin crawl with something hot and sick when she slams the door and he hears the pounding of her feet as she runs back upstairs. How many times had he run up those stairs as a child to escape his father's wrath? Now his daughter is running up those same stairs to get away from _him_ , and he's horrified.

"Will…" MacKenzie's voice is soft and hesitant, but Will is so heartsick he doesn't want to hear it.

"I can't talk to you right now," he says. He leans back against the side of the house and closes his eyes, trying to pull himself together. The floorboards of the porch creak and he knows she's stepping closer to him and he puts up a hand, warning her away. "Don't," he says quietly. "Please, don't." He doesn't open his eyes, but he hears the floorboard creak again and the soft whine of the hinges on the screen door as she goes inside.

Will's knees give out on him, then, and he slides down the wall to sit heavily on the floor of the porch. He reaches blindly for his pack of cigarettes and smokes two, one after the other, with hands that shake so badly he can barely light them. He's on his third when MacKenzie comes onto the porch again, bags in tow.

"I'm going to stay at my grandfather's for the night," she says. "If you want to call, I'll have my phone. My flight leaves early tomorrow."

Will doesn't reply. 

MacKenzie waits for a minute, and when he doesn't say anything, she drags her bags out to her rental car and drives away.

*****

Will hasn't been shitfaced, falling-in-the-floor drunk since Claire's funeral. He'd started drinking about half an hour after everyone gathered at his house after the service and he didn't stop until long after Claire's mother had taken Emma home with her for the night. He drank himself into a stupor and woke up the next day puking his guts out, and hadn't had more than a beer or two at a time ever since. 

Right now, drunken oblivion sounds like the best thing in the world.

There's a bottle of bourbon at the back of the pantry which hasn't been touched in years, but Will helps himself to it now. Bourbon doesn't go bad, he thinks, and a quick sniff and taste confirms it, but honestly? At this point, he'd probably drink it even if it did. He takes his glass and the bottle to the living room and parks himself there in front of the television he doesn't bother to turn on. 

The level of bourbon in the bottle is substantially lower when Emma comes downstairs. She stops in front of his recliner and crosses her arms over her chest, looking for all the world exactly like her mother, and that's a hurt he doesn't fucking need right now. "Where's MacKenzie?"

"She left." Will pours himself another measure of bourbon and doesn't elaborate.

"Why?"

"Because we broke up."

"Why?"

"Because of reasons that aren't any of your business," Will snaps. "Grown-up reasons."

"I'm not a baby," Emma says. "I'm going to be in high school. I'm not stupid. You can tell me grown-up reasons."

"I'm not telling you because it's nothing to do with you," he says. "Don't ask me again."

Emma stamps her foot and huffs in frustration. "That's not fair. I like her. She's never going to replace Mom--"

"Damn right about that--"

"--but I like her and we're friends, too. It's not just you. And now she's gone and you won't tell me why and that's not fair."

"Life isn't fair, kiddo. There's my life advice for you. Life isn't fucking fair." He takes a long swallow of bourbon and gestures with his glass. "And here's my other piece of life advice for you. Don't get attached to anyone. Because they just leave."

"Ugh." She rolls her eyes at him and wrinkles up her nose in the way she does when she nags him about smoking. "Are you drunk?"

"Not drunk enough."

"Tell me what happened with you and MacKenzie!"

"Don't fucking ask me about that again," he says. "Any further discussion of MacKenzie McHale is hereby and forever off the table."

Emma huffs and stomps away, muttering under her breath about how 'fucking stupid' he is. Will takes another long swallow of his drink, doesn't bother to chastise her for her language, closes his eyes and leans back, because he is, indeed, _fucking stupid_.

*****

Will wakes in the early afternoon with a pounding headache and a rebellious stomach. He eases himself out of the recliner and only makes it as far as the kitchen before he has to vomit, barely making it to the kitchen trash can in time. He deals with the mess and pops open a can of Coke, hoping the caffeine and the carbonation will help with the nausea. 

The house is quiet. Too quiet. Will has a little more of his Coke and goes upstairs in search of Emma. He was too harsh with her last night, and he needs to apologize for both his words and his behavior. 

Her door is closed. 

"Emma?" he says, knocking lightly. It's too late for her to be asleep, so he knocks again, and when there's no answer, he pushes the door open. Emma's bed is neatly made, with all of her stuffed animals lined up in a row against the pillows. All of them except one, that is--the small white bunny that she's slept with every night without fail since she was a newborn. The bunny is missing, and so are her phone and iPod and chargers, usually plugged in on her nightstand by a framed picture of he and Emma and MacKenzie at the Statue of Liberty, which is also missing; a glance in her closet shows her suitcase is missing, too.

_Fuck_.

"Emma!" he shouts, over and over until his throat is raw, though he knows she's not going to answer. He tries calling her phone; it goes straight to voicemail. He calls her friend Megan's mother, his sisters, and Claire's parents; no one has seen or heard from Emma in days, and Mrs. Taylor goes into hysterics and he has to hang up on her so he can call the police to report Emma missing.

_My daughter is missing._

Four words he thought he'd never in his life utter to the police or anyone else. _My daughter is missing._ Will says the words like they're coming out of someone else's mouth; they seem far away, robotic. He wants to throw up again, but he forces himself to stay on the line with the police and give a description. "She's about five-five, thin build, long blond hair, brown eyes… no, I don't know what she was wearing, I didn't see her before she left." _Because I was passed out drunk in my living room until five minutes ago._ He isn't going to admit that. "She probably has a purple suitcase. She--she might be trying to get to New York City." To see MacKenzie, because he told her not to ask him anymore. He scrambles for his wallet and keys--he can't find his wallet, but his keys are on the hook by the door.

Almost as soon as he hangs up with the police, they call him back. "TSA is holding your daughter at the airport," the officer tells him, and the relief Will feels makes his knees weak and he has to lean against the side of the car. "She tried to buy a ticket to NYC with your credit card and no ID. She's not in any trouble, but they're holding her there until you pick her up."

It takes him three tries to start the truck; his hands are shaking so badly he can't turn the key in the ignition. Somehow he manages to get the truck started and on the road, and _keep_ it on the road to the airport. 

At the airport, a bored-looking TSA agent escorts him through security and to a small, dingy room past the screening area. Emma immediately bursts into tears and launches herself at him. "Daddy, I'm so sorry," she chokes out through her sobs, clinging to him in a way she hasn't since she was a little girl and scared of the monsters under her bed. 

"Oh, God, Emma." The terror he felt at finding her missing has evaporated into sheer relief, and he holds her so tightly his arms ache. "Don't ever fucking scare me like that again, okay? Don't ever."

"I won't," she says. "I promise."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Emma nods against his chest and sniffles a little. "They asked me a lot of questions and told me I was in a lot of trouble for trying to buy a ticket with your credit card and I was afraid they would take me to jail or something and I just wanted to go home."

"Jesus." She probably _does_ deserve to be in a lot of trouble, but right now, Will doesn't give a shit; his daughter is okay and that's all that matters. "Honey, I'm sorry I yelled at you yesterday and I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about MacKenzie, and I'm very, very sorry I got so drunk. Just… please don't ever run away again. I love you and you are the most important thing in the world to me and I don't ever, ever want anything to happen to you." Losing Claire nearly killed him. Losing Emma _would_ kill him. 

"Okay," she says, genuinely contrite. "I won't. I promise. But I still want to be able to talk to MacKenzie. She's my friend and it's… I miss her."

"Emma--"

"You said what happened with you didn't have anything to do with me. And if it doesn't have anything to do with me, then I should still be able to talk to her because _I_ didn't break up with her. I like her and she gives me good advice about school and stuff and I shouldn't have to give that up because you had a fight."

Will feels vaguely manipulated; she hasn't come out and said _I'll run away again if you don't let me talk to MacKenzie_ , but it's what it feels like to him and he doesn't like it. But he can't give her a reason to cut off her contact with MacKenzie other than _because I said so_ , and that feels like the worst reason ever, so he can't really argue. "All right. You can call her or email her or whatever, but I don't want to know about it, Emma. I don't want to talk about MacKenzie at all."

She gives him a _you're being stupid_ sigh, but doesn't argue with him, and Will suspects that's as much as he's going to get.

*****

_This started as a story about your mother. You said you wanted to remember her and I didn't ever want you to forget her and I thought if I put down everything you might want to know about her, that it would help. And in most ways, this is still very much a story about your mother, and you, and our family._

_But there's always other people involved in a family. You don't know much about my parents; my mother died when you were very young, and my father was never around. And, God willing, he'll never be around. He wasn't the kind of father I've tried to be for you. I think everything I've learned about being a father is by doing the opposite of everything he did to me. And the reason I'm writing this now is because I never want you to feel like you have to be scared of me. I was scared of my father a lot growing up for reasons that I don't want to go into detail about. I don't want you to be scared of me like that._

_The night MacKenzie and I broke up, I think I scared you. And I can never tell you how sorry I am for that._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three years later.

There are emails and phone calls and voicemails.

Will deletes the voicemails without listening and ignores the phone calls. He creates a filter for the emails so that they go straight to the trash without him ever seeing them. 

Emma mentions MacKenzie a few times. Will trains himself not to snap at her when she does, and eventually Emma gets tired of his non-reaction and doesn't bring her up anymore. But every time her school jazz band has a concert, Emma wears the pearls MacKenzie gave her for Christmas with her black concert dress. Will resents it, but he doesn't stop her.

He googles Brian Brenner once and feels weirdly smug when he learns that Brenner's been fired from _Newsweek_. Then he regrets looking him up, because the grainy black and white picture is enough to give him a mental image of him and MacKenzie that he can't shake.

After a while, he tries dating again. Susan sets him up with one of her co-workers at the pediatrician's office. Mary introduces him to her daughter's third grade teacher. And once he goes out with the mother of one of Emma's friends from band.

They never make it past a first date. 

It isn't that there's anything wrong with the women he dates, necessarily; it's that he mentally compares them to MacKenzie and they always come up short in some way. (Will doesn't admit that to himself; he tells himself that he's too busy to date and that he needs to put more work into the farm so that he can put aside more money for Emma's college fund.) So after a few tries, he gives up on dating. 

There's a part of him that wants to call MacKenzie, to tell her that maybe he's overreacting, that he wants to apologize, that he wants to find a way to make this work. But too much time has passed. He's ignored too many phone calls and deleted too many emails and maybe this wasn't meant to be. 

So he lets it go.

*****

Through all of this, Will couldn't be more proud of Emma. She works hard in school, earning straight As while working on the school newspaper and throwing herself into jazz band even more than before. He doesn't have to prompt her to practice piano or do her homework, and yet she still finds the time to help him on the farm and around the house. 

She's just a damn good kid.

Emma talks now and then about _when I go off to college_ and at first, Will doesn't think much about it. There's a part of him that's always assumed that she'll go to the University of Oregon, just like he and Claire did years ago, and maybe she'll live on campus or get an apartment in town but she won't really be very far away. She's spending more and more time on her music, and Oregon has a good jazz studies program, so it seems to be a natural fit. That's why he's surprised when she comes to him one evening with glossy brochures and application materials from a handful of schools, not just Oregon.

"I wanted to show you these," she says, late in the summer before her senior year, coming out to join him on the swing when he's having his after-dinner smoke. There's a packet from Oregon, but there's another on top of it from NYU.

"New York?" He picks up the packet and thumbs through it with a little frown.

"I know what you're thinking," she says, "but it's a good school for jazz--"

"So is Oregon."

"--and for journalism--"

"Oregon has a journalism program."

"--and the journalism major at NYU is set up so that you _have_ to have a double major, which means I can also major in music."

"Which I'm sure you could do at Oregon."

"Maybe." Emma fans the information packets across her lap. "There are other places I could go, too. But Oregon and NYU are at the top of my list and those are the places I really want to apply."

"Is MacKenzie trying to talk you into this?" Will asks.

"No," Emma answers. "She didn't say anything about NYU to me until I brought it up and then she said she wouldn't give me any advice about it until I talked to you first."

Will's a little hurt that Emma went to MacKenzie about her college choices before she came to him. Granted, he probably hasn't been very open on the subject, since he's just been assuming all along that she'd go to UO, but it still stings. "Oregon is a good school," he says. "It was good enough for your mother and me."

"I know," Emma says. "And I'm not crossing it off the list. I'm going to apply. But I don't know if I want to go to a school where there's a sports field named after my grandparents. I want to know that I got in somewhere because of me, not because my grandparents give lots of money. Maybe they won't care. But it would be nice to _know_ I got in because of me."

Will wants to argue with that, but he really doesn't have an argument against that (even if he can think of plenty of arguments against NYU); he can't fault her for wanting to earn things on her own merits. 

"I want to at least apply to NYU," Emma says, when he doesn't immediately reply. "It doesn't mean I'll actually go there. I mean, they might not even accept me."

"They'd be stupid not to accept you." Will slides his arm around her shoulders and she leans against him. "You're smart and interesting and you can play the hell out of that piano." He sighs and glances at the packets she's clutching. "So what do you have to do to apply?"

"For NYU I have to upload an audition video to Youtube," she explains, "and fill out an application, and then if they like it they'll call me for an interview and a live audition. For Oregon I have to apply and do a live audition… I have all the audition dates and deadlines and stuff here." She passes him a piece of paper with a spreadsheet listing all the colleges she's looked at, their application deadlines, audition dates, and requirements. Oregon and NYU are highlighted at the top of the sheet.

Will's impressed with her organization, even if he's not crazy about the idea of her applying to a college on the other side of the country. "Okay," he says. "Just let me know if you want help with your audition video."

*****

"Helping" Emma with her audition video turns out to be a time-consuming task. Emma isn't satisfied with the first take, or the second, or even the fifth, and wants to take and re-take, playing again and again until her hands ache. Will watches the videos and can't find anything wrong with them. Emma points out a hesitation there, a missed note or rhythm there, but Will still doesn't see it. 

All he sees is his daughter being fucking awesome.

"Kiddo, I think you're being too hard on yourself," Will tells her. The November application deadlines are looming and it's getting to the point where she has to upload _something_ , even if she thinks it's not her very best playing.

Emma leans her arms against the piano and rests her head on them with a sigh. "I just want it to be good."

"It _is_ good, hon." He turns off the camera and sits beside her on the piano bench, giving her shoulders a little squeeze. "You're doing so well. If you don't like the last take, just do one more and then let it go."

"What would Mom think about me applying to NYU?" 

Emma doesn't mention Claire as much as she used to. There was a while, after Will gave her the book of memories he'd written for her about her mother, that she talked about her more and asked more questions, but that tapered off in the last year or so, and the question catches him a little off guard. "I don't know, kiddo," he says. "She'd probably be concerned that you want to go so far away, like I am. I'm not going to lie, I don't like the idea. It's far away and it's going to be expensive because you're out of state, and did I mention far away? But you've worked really hard, and you've done your research, and you've busted your ass to make this happen. I'm proud of you for that and I think your mom would be too. She'd be proud of you."

Emma shifts from leaning against the piano to leaning against him. "Thanks, Daddy."

"You're welcome, kiddo." Will slides his arms around her and holds her close. "You want to do one more take and call it a day?" He thinks the last take was good enough, but he knows she won't be satisfied unless she gives it one more try. 

"Yep." She kisses his cheek and rubs her hands together as she sits up. "One more time."

One more time turns out to be enough, and she brings her laptop downstairs and uploads the video to Youtube while Will watches. Then she adds the link to her already-completed application and submits it. 

She auditions at Oregon in mid-November. Will knows he doesn't have to hang around, but he does anyway, sitting in the lobby outside the concert hall where the auditions take place. He's tempted to press his ear to the door and try to listen a little better, but he doesn't want to be _that_ parent; he can hear enough, though it's muffled, to know that Emma does a fucking fantastic job even before she comes bounding out of the hall with a huge smile on her face. 

"You were great, kiddo," he says, catching her up in a hug. "I'm so proud of you."

There's an orientation meeting for auditionees and parents after the auditions, with people from the admissions and advising offices. Will's satisfied with everything he hears--at least until Emma asks if music majors are allowed to double major, and the advisor says no, because the music curriculum is too intense and doesn't allow for a double major, at least not for students who intend to graduate in four years. Which is fucking stupid, if you ask Will (but of course, no one does) and he knows it's another strike against Emma actually attending Oregon.

It's a few days later that they find out she's been selected for a live audition at NYU in December. Emma's so excited Will's surprised she can manage to stay in her skin without jumping out; he's excited for her, of course, and proud that she's made it through the first round, but he's less excited about the last-minute travel arrangements that, in too many ways, remind him of their Christmas trip to visit MacKenzie. They take an overnight flight and arrive in New York early Friday morning. There's a tour of the school in the afternoon and Emma sits in on a class and gets more information about the auditions. 

Emma's much more nervous about this audition than the one at Oregon, Will thinks. She fidgets all through dinner and doesn't eat very much, and back at the hotel she goes to bed early. He guesses she's more nervous about this one because it's the school she _really_ wants. The audition at Oregon was less pressure for her, because it isn't what she has her heart set on. NYU is what she really wants, which makes the audition so much more important for her.

Her audition is early Saturday morning. Will gets her to the school in time for her to find a practice room and warm up, and again, he hangs around in the lobby and waits for her. He reads the paper, drinks some coffee he picked up along the way, makes small talk with some other parents hanging around and expects the morning to be fairly boring for him.

What he doesn't expect is to hear a soft, "Hi, Will."

He turns around to see MacKenzie, dressed in jeans and a sweater with a soft grey scarf wrapped around her neck. She looks a little tired, but her cheeks are pink from the cold and her hair is soft around her face where it's fallen from its ponytail and it's like three months have passed since he's seen her last, instead of three years. Will's heart contracts painfully in his chest and he can't speak for a moment.

"It's good to see you," she adds, when he doesn't immediately respond.

"What are you doing here?" It comes out more gruffly than Will intends, but he doesn't know how to moderate it.

"I came to wish Emma good luck," MacKenzie answers. "I hope that's all right."

"Yeah," he says, and shrugs a little. "She's in a warm-up--in a practice room. Warming up."

"Good," she says. "That's good." MacKenzie shifts her purse on her shoulder and slides her hands into the pockets of her jeans. "You must be very proud of her for making it this far."

"I am." Will doesn't know what to say to her. Emma seems the safest topic. "She's been working really hard."

"Of course she has."

"MacKenzie!" Emma's loud enough that some of the other waiting parents turn in her direction and frown, but she doesn't care, running down the staircase to catch MacKenzie in a hug. "You came!"

"Of course I came," MacKenzie says, hugging Emma tightly before letting go. "I wanted to wish you luck. Good Lord, you've grown so much! You're so tall. Look at you."

Emma looks from MacKenzie to Will, beaming. Will, on the other hand, is intensely uncomfortable; he feels the two of them arranged this meeting behind his back and while he's glad Emma has the support, he doesn't like the deceit, and he doesn't being left out of things that affect him. "You ready?" he asks her, saying nothing about his discomfort--it's not the time, not now, not when Emma's trying to focus on her audition. 

"Yeah," she says. "I'm ready. I think. I mean, yes. I'm ready."

This audition is different from the one at Oregon; it's a two-hour jam session with faculty and other auditionees, basically, and lunch afterward. And unlike her previous audition, he can't really hang out in the hall and listen. So he hugs her and tells her he's proud of her and that he'll meet her back here when it's all over, and then MacKenzie hugs her again and wishes her luck, and then Emma walks away with the other auditionees and Will's left standing there with MacKenzie. 

"It's going to be a few hours," he says. "I'm going back to the hotel, and I"ll come back when she's done."

"Come and have coffee with me." It's a tentative invitation, almost a question. 

"I don't think it's a good idea."

"Will--" She reaches out, touches his arm. "It's just coffee. I just want to talk."

 _We don't have anything to talk about,_ he thinks, but that isn't true and _fuck_ , he misses her, even as he feels a small ember of anger kindling inside him. "All right," he says reluctantly. "Just coffee."

There's a Starbucks not far away, and they walk there in silence. Will orders a coffee and MacKenzie orders a peppermint mocha and they take their drinks to a little table by the window. Will rolls the red cup between his palms and doesn't drink much. 

"Was this your idea?" he says finally. "Getting Emma to come to NYU?"

"Of course it wasn't," MacKenzie answers. "I've kept in touch with Emma, yes. We'd grown close and she didn't want to cut off contact. We talk about school and her friends and the news. But I never gave her college advice, because that isn't my place; I'm not her parent. And when she asked me about it, I told her she had to talk to you." It's warm in the coffee shop, and MacKenzie loosens the scarf around her neck. "I tried to call and email--"

"I didn't read any of them," Will says.

"I thought you might not."

"I guess you know me well."

"Not as well as I thought I did," she says. "I didn't think you'd break up with me for being honest."

"I didn't break up with you for being honest, I broke up with you for cheating on me," he says, trying to keep his voice low. "But why did you tell me? You could have kept it to yourself and I would never have known."

"Because we were getting serious, and I thought it was best to--if we were going to uproot our lives, one or both of us, to be together, I wanted to do it on an honest footing. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if we'd started with a lie."

"But now _I_ have to live with it."

"Would you rather I'd been dishonest?"

"Yes." He plunks his cup down hard enough on the table to knock the little cardboard sleeve loose, clattering around the bottom of his cup. "I really wish you hadn't told me."

"I'm sorry." She moves to reach across the table for his hand, but Will sits back in his chair and slowly rips a napkin into little pieces, and she draws her hand back.

"I don't know why she wants to come to school out here," Will mutters, taking his frustration out on the hapless napkin. 

"Because it's a good school," MacKenzie says gently. "She says she won't be able to major in music and journalism at Oregon. One or the other, but not both. Not in four years."

"So she has to come all the way out here? There's not another fucking school in any of the other forty-six states between us where she can major in music and journalism? It has to be in fucking New York?" It frustrates him, but he's said next to nothing about it to Emma, because he wants to be the supportive father, not the guilt-tripping one or the one that keeps her from pursuing her dreams. "What if something happens to her? What if she gets sick or has an accident or--what if…" _What if something happens to her and I can't be here to fix it?_

"I'll be here, for anything she needs."

"You're not her mother, MacKenzie." He says it in anger, and regrets it, but MacKenzie doesn't look wounded by the barb.

"I know, and I've never tried to be. But I am her friend, and I'm not going to babysit her or interfere in her life but if something happens, I'll be here for her until you can be." 

She's taking everything he's throwing at her and deflecting it with ease, with gentleness and understanding and calm reason, and Will doesn't have weapons against that. He has long-standing defenses against words in anger, against fists and arguments, and though he hasn't needed them in decades, they're still there (he thinks he built them so solidly when he was young they'll never really go away). But he doesn't know how to defend himself against someone who won't give him the fight he's itching for (Claire never gave him that fight, either) and it frustrates him. And he loves her. He loves her for not giving him the fight he wants but knows isn't good for him, and he loves her for caring about his daughter.

(But the months he was falling in love with her, she was with her ex-boyfriend, and he can't get his mind--or his heart--past it.)

"She'll get a good education here, Will."

"She'd get a good education in Oregon," he says, fixing his eyes on the little pile of shredded napkin he's made on the table.

"I know she would." MacKenzie fiddles with her scarf and he knows she's waiting for him to look at her, but he can't. He keeps his eyes focused on the shredded paper on the table. "Listen," she says gently. "I want to take Emma out after her audition, to dinner or something. If it's all right with you. I haven't said anything to her about it… I wanted to ask you first. You can come with us if you want--"

"Sure," he says, with a brightness he doesn't feel. "But I think I'll pass. I think I have a bad case of jet lag or something. I'm going to go back to the hotel."

"Will--"

"No, really. It's fine. She's probably kicking ass in there, she's going to want to celebrate." Will doesn't feel very much like celebrating. "You two have a great time. But don't keep her out too late, okay? We have an early flight tomorrow. It was really good to see you again."

It's petulant and whiny of him, and he knows it. But he can't help feeling that he's being replaced, that he's being pushed out of Emma's life--and the thing that takes the fucking cake is that MacKenzie isn't doing it on purpose, Emma isn't doing it on purpose. It's just a part of Emma's growing up, and he's not fucking ready for it. He's gotten her from birth to this point; the first part of the way it was mostly Claire, and then the rest of the way it was almost all him, and now that he's gotten her from A to B he doesn't know what else he's supposed to do. He's not sure what his purpose is supposed to be, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ADDED Dec. 7, 2013:
> 
> I have gotten a lot of comments which consist solely of something like "update right away!" or "have you abandoned this fic?" I'm a teaching assistant and it's end of term so I have my own finals and I have to give and grade finals and I have a second and third job as well. On top of that, I have a family to take care of. I write longish chapters and do not update every day. So please be patient, and if you really want to say something about an update, it would be polite to preface the demand with at least a little positive feedback. Thanks for your understanding.


	8. Chapter 8

"I really don't think it's a good idea, honey."

Will isn't expecting to hear MacKenzie's voice coming from Emma's room. He knows they talk on Skype frequently, but he never eavesdrops and isn't now, except that Emma's door is open and he's passing through the hallway and he misses the sound of her voice so he stops for a moment, listening.

"But it's my party," Emma says, "and if I invite you, it's okay for you to come."

"It's not all right for me to drop in on a family gathering without your father's approval," MacKenzie says. "I'd love to see your graduation, but I don't want to make him uncomfortable."

Will feels a little stab of guilt at that. It clearly means something to Emma to have MacKenzie there, and despite what's happened between them, MacKenzie still cares for his daughter--and is trying to respect his wishes. 

He steps away from the door and goes downstairs. A little while later, he hears the shower running upstairs and knows Emma and MacKenzie's conversation is over, so he picks up the phone.

"Will?" She sounds surprised to hear from him, and he supposes he can't blame her. He hasn't called her since they split and he doesn't answer her calls.

"Yeah. Hi."

"Hello." She clears her throat and is silent for a moment; when he doesn't immediately respond, she adds, "It something wrong?"

"Yeah. No, I mean. Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine. Fine and dandy." He mentally kicks himself for fumbling over his words and sounding like an idiot; it's been so long since they've spoken, he doesn't know what to say, and the sound of her voice flusters him a little. "I was just--I don't eavesdrop on you and Emma, but I was walking by her room and her door was open and I heard her invite you out for her graduation and you said no, because of me, and I wanted you to know that it's okay, if you want to come and see her--and if not, it's fine too, I mean, it's a long flight and you're busy with work and everything so if you need to say no because of that, it's fine, you just don't have to say no because of me."

"Oh. Well, that's--that's good to know, Will."

"You absolutely don't have to. I didn't tell Emma I was calling you, so if you don't want to come you can still blame it on me."

"I wasn't blaming anything on you," MacKenzie protests. "I was just saying--"

"I know," he says. "I know. I didn't mean it like that. I was just trying to say--nevermind." He sighs, pulling the phone away for a moment to scrub a hand over his face before speaking again. If he's this bad at talking to her, it's probably a good thing that he hasn't tried to call her before now. "I was trying to say that if you want to come to Emma's graduation and the only thing holding you back is wondering how I'll feel about it, you can take me out of the equation. It would be good to see you again and it would mean a lot to Emma. But I don't want you to feel obligated to fly out here, either."

"Honey, are you done?" It's a man's voice, just barely audible in the background, but it's enough for Will to hear. His stomach drops and he bites back the first retort that comes to the tip of his tongue because it wouldn't be pretty.

"Just a minute, Wade," MacKenzie says.

"It's all right," Will says quickly. "I should let you go. You have company."

"He can wait," she says.

"Boyfriend?" It's not his business, but he can't help it.

"Well--yes, I suppose so." She sounds flustered, and Will tries not to imagine how she probably looks right now, with a nervous flush on her cheeks. "I wasn't trying to--"

"Nope, it's fine," Will says, trying to sound nonchalant even though he desperately wants to end the conversation in the quickest possible way. They've been broken up for years; it's none of his business whether she's dating someone or not, but it still stings and he feels a little like an idiot. "This is exactly how it's supposed to be. Listen, I have to go. Let Emma know what you decide." He hangs up quickly, before MacKenzie can reply.

*****

Will doesn't ask Emma if MacKenzie is coming, and Emma doesn't volunteer the information. In some ways Will thinks he's better off not knowing, but mostly it's driving him nuts. He tells himself he doesn't care one way or the other if she comes or not but he'd be happy if she does, only because it will make Emma happy. When he tells Susan this one night over dinner, she laughs at him.

"Will, you know I love you," she says, gesturing with her wine glass, "but you really are fucking stupid sometimes."

"Thanks a lot, sis," he grumbles. 

"Honey, I know how much you loved Claire and I know what a good marriage you had. She made you happy and I was really glad to see it, after the way we grew up. You deserved to be happy. We all did. And I don't know what happened between you and MacKenzie and it's not my business, but if you're holding her up to that pedestal you had Claire on, you're an idiot."

Will bristles. "I didn't--"

"I think you remember her as more perfect than she really was," Susan goes on. "She was a good woman and you loved her and I get that you just want to remember the good times because she's gone. I totally understand. But you forget she was human just like all of us and if you create some perfect version of her to compare everyone else to, they're all going to come up short and you're never going to be happy again. And I want you to be happy. You've been miserable ever since you two split up and frankly, I don't like the idea of you being here alone and miserable when Emma goes off to New York."

"I should have made her go to Oregon," Will says.

"But you didn't, because that's not what she really wanted and you knew it," Susan says. "You've done your part in raising her and I think you did a pretty good job. But it's time to let her go and start thinking about what you want out of the rest of your life."

"Come talk to me about letting go in two years when it's time for Jimmy to go off to college," Will retorts, but there's no heat in it. 

"I might change my tune then, sure," Susan agrees. "Will, I just want you to be happy, okay? Just think about what I said. Whether it's MacKenzie or someone else, I just want you to be happy."

*****

In the end, MacKenzie comes to Emma's graduation. The ceremony is outside, with a platform and seats for the graduates down on the football field and the audience in the stands, and Will's aware of MacKenzie sliding into a seat at the end of a row a few rows below him just before the ceremony starts.

He's damn proud of his kid. She gets an award for having the second highest grades in her graduating class, a shiny medal on a blue and white ribbon, and gives a little speech. Will's not really sure exactly what she says in the speech. Probably some stuff about friendship and family and hard work with the phrase moving on to the next phase of our lives making an appearance or two, but he's so close to bursting with pride for her that it's hard to listen to every word. 

Afterward, there's a graduation party at his house. Claire's parents hired a caterer, for which he was originally grateful, because it meant he didn't have to deal with food for a few dozen people--but now he's almost wishing he did, because it would give him something to _do_. Tonight, his hosting duties have mainly consisted of wandring through the house and into the yard, where the party has spilled out into the mild Oregon summer evening, distributing beers to the of-age partygoers, and now that he's done that he's not sure what else he can do that doesn't involve talking to MacKenzie.

Which means that he needs to talk to MacKenzie. He catches a glimpse of her now and then; she looks beautiful in a soft brown dress with her hair loose on her shoulders, chatting easily with guests and introducing herself to anyone she doesn't know.

"Hello," he says, and offers her a beer.

"Hi." She takes the bottle from him with a small smile. "It's a nice party."

"Yeah, it's all right. One of those milestones, you know." He nods to Emma, across the grass at a table with her grandparents. "She's really glad you came."

"I'm glad I came. You must be so proud of her."

"That's putting it mildly," Will says. "I don't think I could have asked for a better kid. She's good, you know?" He doesn't think he can really take much credit for that.

"She's fantastic."

"Yeah." He sips at his beer and knows he can't make small talk about Emma for the entire evening, even if tonight is all about her. "Look, I'm glad you came. Not just because it makes Emma happy, but… it's good to see you."

"You too, Will." Her smile softens and though it isn't the way she used to look at him before, it's still enough to make him feel a little more tender towards her.

"I wanted to say thanks for everything you've done for Emma--doing for Emma," he says. It's easier to say than he thought it would be. Maybe that's because she's with someone else so this isn't about trying to get back together with her; it's just about saying something, trying to put a little patch in the hole left by these years of distance. "Just being there for her, and… you know."

"Of course. She's a lovely girl, and it's been good to watch her grow up." She hesitates, covering the little silence with a sip of her drink. "Are you all right with her moving to New York?"

Will feels like he ought to say _yes_. He _should_ be all right with it by now. Emma's made her decision, deposits have been paid, she's registered for an orientation in a few weeks. It's a thing that's happening and at this point, he should have made his peace with it.

But he hasn't. 

"Not really," he admits. "It's so far away, it's totally different from here where she's grown up, from everything she knows--"

"Which is part of going away to college," MacKenzie adds softly. "The whole learning experience."

"I know, I know. What if something happens? Anything happens to her and I'll be on the other side of the country and I won't be able to help."

"I'll look after her as much as I can," she says, touching his arm briefly. "She's almost eighteen, she doesn't need a babysitter, but if something happens or she needs something, she can call me any time. And she'll have her professors and she'll make friends. Emma will be fine."

Will thinks MacKenzie is probably right about Emma. She'll be fine. He's just not sure _he_ will be.

*****

Summer flies by far too quickly for Will's liking. It feels like no time at all between Emma's graduation and her packing up to move off to college. He takes her to New York, helps her get settled and pick up the rest of the things she needs for school, and it feels a lot like the other times they've been to New York except this time, he comes home alone.

The house is too quiet. It's not just the quiet, though; it's not just the absence of sound, so much as it is the absence of _Emma_. He's used to the house being quiet. Whenever Emma was upstairs on her computer or in the barn or at school or out with her friends, the house was quiet, but her presence was always there--the sheet music scattered across the piano, her hairbrush and curling iron left on the bathroom counter, a glass left in the sink, a half-read book on the couch. Now, the only things out of place are his. Emma's room is neat, the bed made, things she's left behind put away, but her favorite pictures and stuffed animals made the trip to New York with her and it feels more like a guest room than his daughter's room.

Emma calls him often at first, sometimes every day. She tells him about her classes, the friends she's making, the famous musicians from around the world that come for concerts and master classes. She tells him about her roommate, Molly, and her piano teacher, and Will sits on the porch with a cigarette after dinner and listens to her talk while he smokes, and she pauses in the middle of her stories to remind him that she knows he's smoking and ought to stop. He tells her he knows and lights another while she talks. 

After a few weeks, the phone calls are fewer and further between. Sunday afternoons become their regular times to talk, but those, too, become shorter. Will tells himself she's busy and that's good, because she didn't go all the way out there just to spend all her time on the phone with her father. 

One Sunday afternoon in early December, she doesn't call. After waiting for half an hour, he calls her instead. She doesn't answer. He thinks she's probably studying, since it's the end of the semester, but when she doesn't call him back by evening, he's concerned. He calls again, and this time she answers just before he thinks it's going to voicemail.

"Daddy?" Her voice is soft and tired, and there's a little delay before she speaks again, like trying to find words is an effort. "I didn't call. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, kiddo." He doesn't like how she sounds. "You all right?"

"I was sleeping," she says. "I think I slept all day. I don't feel so good."

"Have you been to the doctor?"

"No. I woke up this morning and I felt sick so I just went back to bed." Emma speaks slowly, but her words run together a little. "My head really hurts."

"Have you eaten anything today?"

"No. I just slept."

Will doesn't like it at all. He knows there's a chance he's overreacting, but he doesn't care. Emma's always been healthy; she never admits to feeling unwell, even if she has the flu, so to hear her say she slept all day bothers him. "Honey, I don't like how you sound. I'm going to make some calls, okay? Keep your phone close and I'll call you back soon."

There's a long silence before Emma says, "What?"

"I'm going to make some calls." He keeps his voice even and calm even though the faintness and disorientation in her voice is too much like Claire's after the worst of her chemo and his hands are shaking so badly he nearly drops the phone. "Just stay in bed, keep your phone with you, and I'm calling you back in a few minutes."

"Don't hang up, Daddy," she says, before he can hang up.

"Okay, baby, I won't." It's an endearment he hasn't used since she _was_ a baby, but he's out of ways to comfort her and he's trying everything he can. Will moves to the desk, reaching for the seldom-used landline while keeping his cell phone in his hand. "I'm going to call MacKenzie, see if she can check on you. That okay?"

"Okay." 

Her voice is muffled and he thinks maybe she's crying a little and _fuck_ , why did she have to go to school on the other goddamn side of the fucking country where he can't _do_ anything? He puts Emma on speaker so he can pick up the landline and dial MacKenzie.

"MacKenzie? God, I'm glad you answered. Emma's sick."

"Will? What's going on?"

"She sounds terrible, she's been sleeping all day--"

"Is she hungover?"

"No." Honestly, it never occurred to Will to even _ask_ if she'd been drinking. "I mean, I don't think so. Can you go by and check on her?"

"Absolutely. I'll go right now, if you want."

"That would be really--yes, if you could now, that would be good. Thank you."

He hangs up the landline, but keeps Emma on his cellphone, just talking to her. She murmurs a little answer now and then, but he can tell she's not really listening--she sounds half-asleep, so after a while he stops talking and just sings softly to her, little songs he used to sing to her to get her to sleep as a baby, songs that are mostly nonsense but maybe will help her feel a little less terrible and a little less alone. He loses a little track of time until he hears someone knock, what sounds like a shuffling at the door and then MacKenzie's soft voice and another, unfamiliar--someone from the university, he supposes, letting MacKenzie in. He can't make out what MacKenzie's saying to Emma, or her answers, and he waits a few long moments until he can't take it anymore.

"MacKenzie?"

"Hold on." A pause, and then, softly, "I stepped out in the hall. Will, she's burning up with fever and she looks terrible. She can hardly put a sentence together and she couldn't even get out of bed to open the door for us--her roommate isn't in. I'm a terrible judge of when someone is sick, but I don't think it would be overreacting if I took her to the hospital."

"Oh, God.."

"Don't panic," she says quietly. "I'm sure she just has a bad case of the flu and needs fluids and something to bring down her fever. I'll get her to the emergency room and as soon as the doctor sees her and tells me something I'll call and tell you everything."

"Call me as soon as you know something." She just said she would do exactly that, but Will can't help but say it anyway because saying it is doing something, even though it's completely ineffectual. 

"Remember when I promised you I'd look after Emma while she's here?" MacKenzie says. "I'm going to do that, Will. Just--sit tight and I'll let you know something as soon as there's something to know."

It's hard for Will to let her hang up the phone, and it's even harder to just _sit_ there while God-knows-what is happening to his daughter three thousand miles away. There's no way he can actually sit there and do nothing, so he drops some clothes in the washing machine and goes out on the porch to smoke and comes back inside to wash the one glass and plate in the sink and goes back outside to smoke again. He checks his phone every few minutes to make sure he hasn't missed her call even though he has the ringer turned up to the highest volume.

He's on his third cigarette in a row when MacKenzie calls.

"Don't panic," she says, before he can say anything. "But the doctor suspects Emma has meningitis."

" _Shit._ "

"I said, don't panic. They're running some tests to make sure, but they've started her on some strong antibiotics already because if it _is_ meningitis, she needs them as soon as possible. She's in good hands and there's a very good chance she's going to be all right because we got her to the hospital quickly and she hasn't been sick for long."

Will doesn't want to hear about what the chances are; Claire's chances had been good, too, they'd told him, and in the end they hadn't been good at all. "I'm coming out there," he says.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, goddamn it, I'm coming out there, my daughter is in the fucking hospital, I can't just sit here--"

"Of course not. It's okay. Get a flight and let me know when and where you'll be flying in and I'll have a car sent over for you. I'll stay at the hospital until you get here so she won't be alone."

"MacKenzie--" He doesn't know what the fuck he would do right now if it wasn't for her help. This is exactly the kind of thing he feared about Emma going to school so far away and now that it's happening, the sense of panic and helplessness is overwhelming.

"It's okay, Will," she says, cutting him off before he can stumble over something to say. "She's going to be okay. And she's not going to be alone."

There are no flights out of Eugene until six in the morning, but if he drives to Portland right now, he can get on a plane around one and that gets him to New York a few hours sooner. He throws some things in a bag and calls Susan as he's pulling the truck out of the driveway, asking her if she and her husband can look after the farm while he's gone. And then he starts the long drive up I-5, with one eye on the road and the other on the clock and praying to God nothing happens before he can get to his daughter.


	9. Chapter 9

There was nothing that could have prepared Will for the sight of his daughter in the hospital, partly because she looks so goddamn _fragile_ and partly because she looks so much like her mother in the worst of ways. He's all too familiar with the sounds of beeping machinery and the smell of disinfectant and the endless yards of tubes and lines but it's still a shock to see Emma in the middle of it, and for a moment he's really goddamn glad she's not awake because he doesn't want her to witness him losing his shit.

But MacKenzie's there, and he doesn't want her to see it either, so he pulls it together somehow.

"They sedated her," MacKenzie explains, "because she was in so much pain with the headache and everything...I wrote it all down for you, everything the doctor said, because I knew I wouldn't remember it and I knew you'd want to know and not have to wait for the doctor to come around again."

She offers him a little notepad. "Thank you," he says, taking it. "For getting her here so fast. And staying with her."

"Of course," MacKenzie says. She has the tired look of someone who has slept in a chair all night and not very well. "I didn't want her to be alone until you got here." She reaches out to smooth down the corner of the sheet at the foot of Emma's bed. "I have to go in to work for a while, but I'll come by later this afternoon. If that's all right."

He nods, unable to speak, and she touches his arm lightly before leaving. Will drops his bag on the floor and sinks into the chair beside Emma's bed. She looks so pale and fragile and he's afraid to touch her, but he brushes his fingers lightly against her hand. Her skin is unpleasantly warm from fever; whatever they're giving her to fight the infection hasn't made a dent yet. 

For a long time after Claire died, Emma was inconsolable. She was just old enough to have a vague understanding of what cancer was and what it meant for someone to die, just old enough to understand that her mother was never coming back, and just old enough to understand that this was a problem that her Daddy couldn't fix for her. He was good at fixing her dollhouse and her swingset and scaring away the monsters under her bed, but he couldn't fix this. All he could do was hold her while she cried and try not to show her how much he was grieving, too.

He can't fix this either.

*****

MacKenzie comes by the hospital in between meetings at work. Sometimes she brings her laptop or the newspapers, skimming through the pages faster than Will's ever seen with her glasses perched on her nose and a highlighter in her hand, but mostly she just sits quietly with him. He's really glad she doesn't try to engage him in conversation because he's not sure he could put words together into sentences that make sense.

After the show that night she brings a white paper take-out bag of sandwiches and coffee and juice. It's after visiting hours, but no one stops her. There's a smaller bag, too, that she puts on Emma's table. "She might want some things when she wakes up," MacKenzie says, with a soft shrug. Will peers in the bag--it's filled with things like chapstick, a hairbrush, toothpaste, some hard candies, a bottle of lotion. 

"I don't know," MacKenzie adds. She sounds as helpless as Will feels. "We didn't bring any things from her dormitory, we left in such a hurry. I can get other things if she wants them."

"It's nice of you," Will says.

MacKenzie hands him the bag of sandwiches. "You need to eat," she says. 

"Not really hungry."

"I know you didn't eat anything on the plane and you've been here all day--you need to eat," she insists. "You won't be helping Emma if you make yourself sick."

Will sighs and opens the bag, unwrapping one of the sandwiches. He takes a few bites even though he doesn't want them and drinks half the bottle of juice.

"Better?"

"Yes. This is decaf, by the way," she adds, pushing the coffee towards him. "I'll bring the good stuff in the morning. The coffee here is shit."

Will drinks a little of the coffee and sighs. Decaf is a waste of time, as far as he's concerned, but it's late--though it's not like he's really going to sleep, anyway. "Thanks," he says.

"Of course. Anything you need…"

"I know."

*****

"Daddy?"

Will's dozed off in the chair by Emma's bed and he wakes at the sound of her voice. "Hey, kiddo," he says softly. "How're you feeling?"

"I'm gonna be sick," she says, and she hardly gets the words out before she vomits. Will doesn't have enough warning to help her, and he pushes the button for a nurse, who helps Emma into a clean gown and changes the blanket. "I'm sorry I made a mess."

"It's okay," Will tells her. "Don't worry about it. Just lie back and get some more rest."

"My head hurts."

"I know. They're going to give you something for that." Hopefully soon, though he doesn't know whether it was the headache or the pain medication that made her sick just now. 

Emma closes her eyes and pulls the blanket up around her. "I want Mom."

"I know, kiddo." Will tucks in her blanket and eases her hair out of her face--not that any of those things are very helpful, but it feels like all he knows how to do. She's still uncomfortably warm with fever, though Will thinks she's not quite as warm as she was when he first got here. "I kinda wish she was here too. But I'm here and you're not going to be alone, okay?"

Emma slides back into sleep, but Will doesn't; he's too worried about her to doze off again. But that worry eases a little over the next twenty four hours. Emma wakes a few more times, staying awake a little longer each time, and by the next evening her fever comes down to something approaching normal. She's not completely out of the woods, but she's getting there.

She's awake when MacKenzie comes by around eight a few days later, with an Egg McMuffin and coffee for Will. "Well, hello there, sweetheart," she says cheerfully. "It's so good to see you awake."

"Hey, MacKenzie," Emma manages. "Did you bring food for Daddy? I smell it."

"I did." She drops the paper sack into Will's hands and brushes her fingers against his shoulder. 

"He's just been eating crap from the vending machine."

"I have not," Will protests, although Emma's telling the truth. He really has just been eating vending machine crap or nothing at all, and Egg McMuffins are his favorite, so he polishes it off in a few bites.

"Well, this is McDonalds, so this is only about half a step up from the vending machine, but at least it's protein," MacKenzie says. "I'm not going in to work until two," she adds, pulling out her newspapers and highlighter from her bag, "so why don't you go to my apartment and get some sleep and have a shower? I made up the guest room for you and the doorman knows to let you in."

"But Emma's awake," Will says. "I can't just leave."

"I think I'm going back to sleep," Emma says. "I'm really tired. I'm gonna be really boring. You should go sleep."

"And take a shower," MacKenzie suggests.

"And shave," Emma says. She's teasing, even if her smile is tired and her face is a lot more pale than Will's comfortable with. "You look like a caveman."

Will laughs, and damn if it doesn't feel good to do that after so long. "Wow, I feel really ganged up on here," he says. "I guess I'm outvoted. You win, I'm going." He leans in to kiss Emma lightly on the forehead. "Get some sleep, kiddo," he says. "You need lots of rest to get better so we can spring you from this joint before Christmas."

*****

MacKenzie's apartment is quiet. Too quiet. He puts his bag in the guest bath and runs the hottest shower he can stand. It feels good to shave off the multiple-day growth of beard (Emma was right; he did look a little like a caveman). Afterward, he settles on the guest bed and tries to sleep, but it's too quiet and after half an hour of tossing and turning he gets up to settle on the couch and flip on the television. It's on ACN, some talk show that's just boring and inane enough to cover up the silence so he can sleep.

He's just closed his eyes when he hears a familiar name in the inane chatter. "Rumor has it that ACN's own MacKenzie McHale and political hopeful Wade Campbell had a dramatic split last night," the smarmy-looking male host says. "Campbell recently announced his intention to run for mayor and apparently hadn't discussed it with his girlfriend first--"

"Which, okay, let's face it, making big decisions like this with no warning to the important people in your life is not the smartest move," his female co-host breaks in, "but for those of you who are fans of Right Now, Wade Campbell has been a regular guest of the program for several weeks, which just makes it look like Ms. McHale was using her status as producer for one of ACN's top news programs to boost her boyfriend's profile."

"Right, right, exactly," the male co-host says. "But sources tell us that when he came to the building last night to see her at work, she banished him to a balcony for twenty minutes--in the snow, which gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'cold shoulder', doesn't it?--before a pretty loud breakup after which security had to be called to escort him from the building."

 _Fucking vultures_ , Will thinks, and flips to another channel. He figures there's more to the story than this, but he feels a little creepy hearing it from some gossipy talk show instead of MacKenzie herself. Hell, maybe she doesn't even know they were talking about her. Or maybe she did know and that's why she wanted to avoid work for a while this morning. He can't say he blames her, really, with people like that working in her building.

He can't sleep now, despite how tired he is. He tosses and turns for a while and then gives up, going for a walk before heading back to the hospital. It's eating at him, this story about MacKenzie--first, that it's on the damn tv in the first place, airing her personal business out to the whole fucking country, and second, that this douchebag wannabe politician was just using MacKenzie to raise his profile. And why didn't she say anything to him? She's been in and out of the hospital, visiting Emma, but she never said a word.

She's sitting outside Emma's room when he gets back to the hospital. "You're back early," she says. "Did you get some sleep?"

"Yeah," Will says. "Thanks, it was just what I needed." He nods to Emma's room. "How's she doing?"

"Oh, she's fine. She slept for a few hours and then her roommate, Molly, stopped by with some of Emma's things from the dormitory. I thought I'd give them a few moments alone." She eyes him carefully and sighs. "You didn't actually sleep, did you?"

"No…"

"Will, you really need to get some rest!"

God, he should have lied to her; now she's going to hover, so he has to just tell her the truth. "I was going to. I just--okay, look. It was too quiet and I couldn't sleep so I turned on the tv and it was on ACN Morning and I saw--"

"Oh."

"--something about you and what's-his-name," he finishes, trailing off at the sight of her face. "I'm sorry."

MacKenzie shrugs and looks away, avoiding meeting his eyes. "I was an idiot."

"Don't say that."

"Well, I was. I was an idiot and he was just using me to get on the show and get more exposure for his political ambitions. He wasn't interested in _me_. Just what I could do for him."

She sounds so hurt and defeated and Will fucking hates it. She's probably right that he was using her--not because she's stupid, but because the guy is a shitbag--but he hates that she's blaming herself and he hates that this asshole used her and he can't stand it. "Look, maybe it just happened," he says, "and maybe it wasn't like that. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Or maybe he's just stupid."

MacKenzie laughs softly, a little bitter, and shakes her head. He hates that, too.

"I mean, nobody in his right mind would risk losing you."

She turns those big brown eyes on him, soft and round, and God, he's reminded how much he loves her. He loves her, and fucking misses her, and he hates that so much time has passed and he hates that it _still_ hurts after all this time. If he hadn't been so stupid…

"I should go on to work," she says quietly. "There's the afternoon rundown, I have to get Elliot ready for the show…"

"Yeah, of course. Thanks for today, and for everything, really. I mean it."

MacKenzie looks a little sad and tired as she turns to gather up her things and Will can't stand it anymore. "Come here," he says, brushing his fingers against her arm, and when she turns back to him he slides his arms around her and pulls her close into a gentle hug. She's stiff at first, not quite resisting but not really expecting the gesture either, but then she draws in a long, shaky breath and relaxes against him, pressing her face against his shoulder. He'd forgotten how well they fit together, how his arms go all the way around her easily and it feels like he's wrapping all of himself around her to keep her close. MacKenzie curls her fingers into the back of his shirt and he lightly rubs his fingers against her spine and that little bit of comfort they can give each other, just for a moment and without needing to talk about it, is enough for now.

It has to be, because there's a discreet cough from the doorway and Will looks up to see someone he can only describe as a tiny ball of redheaded energy--she's just standing there, but just watching her stand still is somehow exhausting. "You must be Emma's dad," she says. "I'm Molly."

"Emma's roommate," MacKenzie supplies helpfully, as she straightens and steps away from Will a little. "She came to bring her a few things from their place."

"I thought she might want some of her own clothes and toothpaste and her contacts and all that stuff," Molly says, "and I brought some books and her laptop, and I made some cookies from this new recipe I saw on Pinterest, but Emma says she doesn't feel very much like eating actual food but that's all right, they're for you, too. She says you've just been eating 'crap from the vending machine' and that's really not okay, you should take better care of yourself, Mr. McAvoy. It's good that MacKenzie has been feeding you. Oh, and I brought some flowers for her--you aren't allergic to flowers, are you? No? That's good. I know Emma isn't but I didn't know about you. Well, I'm going to go now, because Emma says she wants a nap, but I'll be back tomorrow if that's okay? I'm finished with exams but I'm not going home for Christmas since I have to work over the holiday. It was nice meeting you."

Molly bounces down the hall toward the exit and Will's aware of a muffled giggle from MacKenzie's direction, but he cannot look at her or he will crack up. As it is, he feels slightly dizzy from that intense display of enthusiasm. 

"She's adorable," MacKenzie says, between giggles.

"She's exhausting," Will says. "I don't know how Emma doesn't kill her." It's hard to reconcile the idea of his introspective, slightly broody daughter coexisting in a small space with someone so _bubbly_.

"They get along quite well, actually," she says. "I've had them over for dinner a couple of times. She's a sweet girl." MacKenzie is smiling now, and though Will may be a little irritated that Molly interrupted their moment, he's grateful that she made MacKenzie feel a little better, at least. "I should really go to work now. I'll see you tomorrow." 

Tomorrow is Saturday, Will realizes. "If you want, we could… I don't know. Sit with Emma for a while and then go to lunch?" He doesn't know why he's offering, though it could be that Emma will probably strangle him if he eats anything else from the vending machine.

"I'd like that," MacKenzie says, her smile softening. "I'd like that very much."


	10. Chapter 10

There's a little diner not too far from the hospital. It's nothing fancy and definitely not anywhere Will would take anyone on a date, but this isn't a date. It's an attempt to find food that doesn't come out of a paper bag or a vending machine and requires actual plates and utensils to eat, and the diner fits the bill.

MacKenzie doesn't seem to mind. They both order breakfast--steak and eggs for Will, a waffle for MacKenzie, and strong coffee for both of them--and then there's an empty space between the time that the waitress disappears with the menus and the time their food arrives that Will doesn't know how to fill. The obvious thing is to thank her for everything she's done for Emma and for him while Emma's been sick, but he feels like he says it every five minutes lately and she'll know if he says it that he's only saying it because he doesn't know what else to say. 

"Lunch was probably a good idea," he says instead. "I think I'm getting on Emma's nerves. If we hadn't left when we did, I think she would have thrown her jello at me." Emma is a safe topic, he thinks.

"If you're getting on her nerves, maybe it's a good sign," MacKenzie says. "It means she has enough energy to be irritated with you."

"I hope so," Will says. He doesn't like how pale Emma is still, how her cheeks look a little hollow and colorless or how she doesn't have energy for anything but sleep (she says reading and watching TV both give her headaches). "Now that her fever is gone and her bloodwork is looking better, they're talking about letting her out soon."

"You're both welcome to stay with me while she recuperates," MacKenzie offers. "Or just you, if she's there a while and you're tired of sleeping in the chair, or just her, if you need to go back to the farm… however it works out best."

"You've done so much already," Will says. 

"And if I could do more, I would," she replies. "You're like family to me."

"MacKenzie--"

"I know. I don't have a place to say so anymore," MacKenzie says defensively, "but I said it and I'm not going to apologize for it. I still care about both of you."

"That wasn't what I--" The waitress brings their coffee and Will takes his time putting sugar in his before he speaks again. "That wasn't what I was going to say."

"Oh." MacKenzie fidgets with the empty sweetener packets and concentrates on not looking at him. Jesus, this is hard. She looks like she's expecting him to hurt her and that's the last thing he wants.

"I was going to say… look, I don't know how to do this. How to fix--well. It was good when we were together, and it's all wrong now. It's just wrong. We had a good thing and I threw it away because...because… because I don't know why. Because I was stupid or scared or I don't know what. I just gave up."

"I never meant to hurt you," she says softly.

There's a heavy feeling in his chest, like he can't breathe because all of his feelings are bottled up _right there_ and if they don't get out, he's going to lose it right in the middle of this crowded little diner. Whatever has gotten him through this week so far is running dangerously low and he's not equipped to have this conversation right now. "I'm gonna go outside," he says, pushing back his chair, "and I'll be back in a minute. I just need to go out for a minute. Just a minute."

He pushes past other tables and almost takes out a waitress carrying an empty tray before he makes it out onto the sidewalk. There's a pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket and he lights one with shaky hands. He's hardly smoked at all while he's been here and that first intake of nicotine is such a sweet relief he doesn't even mind the bitter cold. Hell, in a way the cold is calming, helping to clear away the suffocating feeling that was building up inside the diner.

Deep down, he _knows_ MacKenzie didn't mean to hurt him. He _knows_ that they weren't on the same page about how serious they were and he knows that she dumped that guy as soon as she realized how serious they were. And he knows that he could not have gotten through this week--shit, he couldn't have made it through letting Emma come out here in the first place if it wasn't for her. He _knows_ all of this.

Knowing is one thing. Knowing what to do about it is another. 

He's about to reach for another cigarette when his phone beeps. It's a text from MacKenzie. _Come back inside?_ it says. _Food's getting cold._

She doesn't mention their earlier conversation when he comes back to the table, and Will is grateful. Eating gives them both an excuse not to talk very much. 

"I think I'm going to give Emma a little break for a while," he says when they're finished and he's drained the last of his coffee. "Trying not to hover so much."

"Come home with me," MacKenzie suggests, so he does. He doesn't have a reason to say no.

They take a cab to MacKenzie's place. In the cab, he calls Emma to tell her he'll be back at the hospital later, and at MacKenzie's apartment, he wanders around aimlessly because he doesn't know what to do with himself, until MacKenzie says, "For heaven's sake, Will, please sit down."

He doesn't remember anything after sitting down; the next thing he's aware of is that it's dark outside and he's lying on MacKenzie's couch with his head in her lap. He groans and shifts some of the weight off his stiff shoulder, but doesn't immediately sit up; his eyes are gritty with sleep and he blinks against the soft light of the little lamp at the end of the couch.

"You were asleep," she says. "I was trying not to bother you."

"Yeah."

"We sat down and you just--well, you needed the sleep." MacKenzie hesitates, like she's waiting for him to sit up, and when he doesn't, she rests her hand on his shoulder. "I hope you got some rest."

"I did, yeah." Not enough, he can tell. A week of dozing off in a hospital recliner is catching up with him and he doesn't have any inclination to move just yet. "I should call Emma."

"She's fine," MacKenzie says softly. "Molly's with her. I called a little while ago." 

She slides her hand lightly over his hair and Will closes his eyes. It's always been his weakness and when she does it now, fingertips dragging lightly at his scalp, it brings on a wave of nostalgia that makes his heart ache. It's a simple touch, but it feels so much more loaded, somehow, and he doesn't know what to do other than to just let it happen. He misses that affection from her. There's nothing that's been able to fill that space for him since they split and he needs it in a way he'll never be able to explain. 

His stiff shoulder twinges and he shifts onto his back, still resting his head against her thigh. MacKenzie looks down at him, her brown eyes soft and a little worried, and he feels like the hold he's been keeping on his anger and hurt is crumbling between his fingers. 

"What do you want, Will?" she asks softly.

 _I want to not be alone,_ he thinks, but it's not only that--not just not being alone, but he wants _her_ to be the reason. "I want things to be right again," he says instead.

"We can make it right," she says tentatively. Her hand cradles his head, her other hand resting against his chest. "Can't we?"

"I want to," he says.

Her face softens into an almost-smile, tender and a little scared, and Will's heart fills with something he hasn't felt since their night at the coast. "Me, too," she says, and leans down to kiss him. It's gentle and awkward and not enough, and Will shifts up to meet her. She makes a little sound that's almost like crying, but it isn't; it's more determined, and her fingers curl into his shirt to tug him closer like she's afraid he's going to slip away from her. 

They don't talk much, after that. He mostly wants to hold her and she's happy to be held. She slides into his lap and leans against his chest and they just fit together, fingers and tongues and soft skin against skin, the small gestures of affection they've both been starving for (Will realizes he isn't the only one who's missed this--she craves it as much as he does). It's reassurance that while they might not have solved everything yet and they have so much further still to go, they'll get the rest of the way there together. _Together._

It's a fragile truce, and he knows it. But it's a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in this chapter. I'm struggling with some writer's block right now, which is why this chapter is so short. I hope future updates won't take this long. Thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

Emma is discharged from the hospital a few days before Christmas. She still tires easily and sleeps a lot, so her flying home for Christmas isn't really an option--she wants to go home, but Will doesn't see the point in her exhausting herself with a day of flying only to turn right around and come back when school starts again. MacKenzie agrees with him; she sets Emma up in her guest room and the three of them have a quiet holiday together before Will has to go back to Oregon. He's been away from the farm for weeks, and though his sisters and their husbands have been good about keeping it running while he's away, he can't ask them to do it for much longer.

It isn't easy to leave. He's still worried about Emma--if she took the spring semester off and came home to recuperate, he wouldn't be sorry, but she says she wants to try to go back because she doesn't want to get behind--and the fact that he and MacKenzie have begun to patch things up makes it even harder.

"I'm glad you and MacKenzie are back together," Emma says. It's Will's last night in New York--MacKenzie's at work, so it's just the two of them for the rest of the evening. They'll have a late dinner when she comes home, which Will is preparing in the kitchen while Emma sits at the counter and watches. He wants it to be nice.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You're both a lot happier. Especially you."

"Maybe it has something to do with you being out of the hospital, kiddo," he says. "You had us scared there for a while."

"Well, yeah, I guess so, but I don't think that's all of it. MacKenzie makes you happy and you make her happy and I'm just glad you're working it out."

"Me too," he says. "Me too." He and MacKenzie aren't exactly picking up where they left off. They've been sharing a bed, but only to sleep; the stress of Emma's illness and their own caution means that they haven't had the energy or desire to pursue anything physical. But they're building up a store of the little things--sitting close, his hand at her back when he opens a door for her, her fingers against his wrist when she passes by, a gentle kiss in a quiet moment--that might be enough to hold on to when he has to leave.

"Are you ever going to… you know, get married?" Emma asks the question like she's not sure how she feels about it, and for a moment she looks so much like she did when she was thirteen and and longing for her mother that Will stops what he's doing and comes to sit beside her at the counter.

"I don't know," he says. 

"Because of Mom?"

"Not really." It's a weird thing to talk about with his daughter, even if she is almost an adult now, but the fact is that MacKenzie and Emma are also close and any decision they make affects Emma too. He thinks he owes it to her to just be honest. "A few years ago, maybe, it would have been, but not now. I… wasn't very nice to MacKenzie when we broke up. I think it's going to be a while before we're ready for anything like marriage, and even if we get there, there would still be a lot to work out." Not the least of which would be where they would live. What they have right now feels a little too fragile to support the weight of any life-changing decisions like that.

Emma nods, like she's thinking about it and it makes sense to her. "Well, if you ever do," she says, "it would be like… well, not really like she's my mom, not exactly, but still, it would be like we're family. Though I guess we're already like family," she adds. "Then it would just be official."

"Yeah," he says. "It would." He sighs and puts his arm around her shoulder and she leans against him a little. "You sure you're going to be okay out here?"

"Yes, Daddy, I'm sure. I'm getting better every day. And I have MacKenzie, and Molly. It's not like I'm here by myself."

"True." If MacKenzie wasn't here, Will wouldn't be leaving Emma before she's completely recovered. That much he's sure of. "I'm still going to worry. I'm your father. I'm supposed to worry."

"Well, worry _less_ ," Emma says. "MacKenzie's looking out for me and Molly is going to keep trying to feed me and I'm going to be okay."

Will glances at the other end of the counter, where there are three tins of cookies from Emma's roommate, and he knows there are two casseroles in the freezer from her too because he was around when Molly breezed into the kitchen and basically took over, to MacKenzie's amusement and Emma's embarrassment. "She really seems intent on trying to take care of you," he says. 

Emma shrugs lightly. "It's funny," she says, "I didn't think we were even going to get along at first, because she's so _intense_... and sometimes I come see MacKenzie just because I need a little space and a little quiet. Then there are times we just click and I'm really glad she's my friend."

Knowing that Emma has such a good friend in Molly should make it a little easier for him to leave, but somehow, it doesn't.

*****

They have a late dinner when MacKenzie comes home from work, just the three of them. Will is glad for the time he has to spend with them both, but he almost can't enjoy it, knowing it will be the last time they'll have together for a while. And that doesn't make it any easier to go to bed, knowing he'll have to be up early for his flight. Now that he and MacKenzie are on better terms, sleep seems like wasted time.

"I'm not ready for you to go back," MacKenzie tells him, after they've settled into bed.

"Kinda have to," he says. She curls against his chest and he slides his arms around her. "My sisters and their husbands have been looking after the farm, but it's going to be calving season soon and I need to be there for that. They've done enough already."

"I know," she says. "I just--"

"I know."

MacKenzie is quiet for a few moments, idly tracing her fingers along his chest. "I'm going to try to come out there soon," she says. "Not until Emma's feeling herself again and back at school, but then I'll come out. I think we need some time. Just us."

"We do." There will be phone calls and emails, he knows, but it's not the same, and when Will thinks of all the time he's wasted being stupid he wants to kick himself. But he doesn't apologize for it. They've said their apologies and decided not to spend any more time dwelling on what happened. _Time to look forward and not back_ , MacKenzie had said, and Will had readily agreed. "I'm going to miss you so much."

"I'm going to miss you too." She shifts in his arms, sliding on top of him, and God, he's missed so many things about her--this is just one of them, the way her soft weight settles against him just so. "And I feel like if we talk about it any more I'm going to cry, and I don't want this to be about crying."

"Okay." No more talking, Will decides, slipping his hands up to cup her face and kiss her. She sighs and melts into him a little and the kiss turns into another kiss and another and after a while Will loses track because he's wrapped up in reconnecting with her. 

"Billy," she says tenderly, that nickname he loved and has missed. 

"I don't want to leave."

"I know."

*****

The typically dreary Oregon winter seems even more colorless than it normally does when he gets back to the farm. There's plenty to do, though, so he can't really sit around and think about how empty the house is. The cows need extra attention in preparation for early spring calving--the double whammy of the last couple months' gestation and the cold weather means they need more feed and more care.

He looks forward to his phone calls with MacKenzie. When he returns to Oregon, it's almost every night, but later there are some nights they don't get to talk at all. 

"It's this story we're working on," she tells him one Saturday evening. He's on the porch having his after-dinner cigarette and she--well he doesn't know what she's doing, but he likes to imagine her sitting in bed wearing the little tank top and leggings she likes to sleep in. "I can't tell you what it is, not yet, but it's huge. It's probably the biggest story I've ever produced in my life. God, Will, it's going to be huge. I don't know if we're going to run it or not… no. I'm sure we're going to run it. It's just a matter of when."

There's something in her voice that lets Will know it's even bigger than she's letting on. Watergate big, Iran-Contra big. "You're gonna be great," he tells her. "Can't wait to see it."

"I'm just sorry it takes away a little of my time with you," she says. 

"It's okay," he says. "Really. You've got something big on your hands and it needs your attention and it won't be forever."

It turns out it's not forever, or even much longer, as Will finds out a few weeks later. One of their biggest sources won't talk, she says, and the other key witness they were hoping to get turns out to be dead. So they've shoved the story to the back burner and MacKenzie takes the down time to come out to Oregon for a long weekend. 

The original plan is that he will pick her up from the airport, but when she calls him on her layover he asks her to rent a car because one of his cows is going into labor and he needs to keep an eye on her--it's a twin birth, and though this cow has always calved well he wants to keep an eye on her, because twins aren't something he's encountered enough that he's entirely comfortable with just letting nature take it's course without a little supervision.

He's in the barn with the cow when MacKenzie shows up in old jeans and a sweatshirt and a pair of waterproof boots. "I stopped by the house," she says, "and since it was pouring rain I borrowed these. They must be Emma's. I hope that's okay."

"Oh, yeah. Totally. You're going to fit right in. It might get messy around here before long." Will's wearing a pair of ratty coveralls and equally ratty boots for that very reason. "Come here."

He slides his arms around her and she leans against him and for maybe the hundredth time he gets that feeling of _rightness_ that comes from being close to her. "How's the mother-to-be?" she asks. 

"Cranky." The cow in question is pacing around and clearly uncomfortable, now and then kicking at her sides and mostly ignoring Will and MacKenzie. She's got plenty of room to pace around and there's enough space for Will to work if he has to go in there and help her calve out, but not enough that he'll have to chase her around. "She's been like this for a few hours, but once things actually get going, it shouldn't take long."

"I've never watched a birth before," MacKenzie says. "Not people, not animals… well, there was this horrible birth film they made us watch in middle school. I think it was supposed to scare us away from having sex for the rest of our lives, and I sort of watched through my fingers so I don't suppose that really counts."

"It's not so bad," Will tells her, laughing softly. "A little messy, maybe, but most of the time you don't really have to do anything. The mamas pretty much know what they're doing and you just have to stay out of the way. Twins, though, they can be tricky. Can't be too careful." 

Each year's crop of calves is what makes the money for his farm, whether they're sold after weaning or some of the heifers kept back to add to the herd. After all the investment he's made in the cows and heifers, keeping them fed and healthy and getting them to this point, he can't afford to lose a single calf (or mother), especially considering the prices grass-fed beef can get these days.

Eventually the cow lies down on the straw and starts straining; not long after that, the front feet emerge, then the head, and the rest of the body quickly follows with a gush of blood and fluid. Will waits to see if he'll need to go in and help, but then the cow hauls herself to her feet and starts to lick the calf clean and it starts to breathe and try to move so Will stays put. 

"Isn't there another?" MacKenzie asks, watching in fascination.

"Sometimes it takes a while for the second one to be born," Will says. "Which is good. Gives the mama a chance to get the first one moving." The cow licks the calf all over, nudging it with her nose, and a few minutes later it tries to stand; hind legs first, with it's butt in the air and forelegs folded underneath. The first attempt is not successful and it topples over. The second attempt is better, though, and the calf gets all four legs underneath its body. It's wobbly, but it's standing, taking shaky steps towards it's mother to nurse.

"Oh, good for it," MacKenzie says happily, leaning on the dividing wall to get a better look. "Come on, little one, you can do it!"

The mother cow allows the new calf to nurse for a little while before labor starts again and she pushes it off so she can lie down. This time, though, there's no progress beyond the tips of the hooves peeking out, and after almost half an hour of nothing happening, Will is concerned. He washes up and pulls on long gloves that go almost up to his shoulder, then carefully goes into the pen, making soft sounds as he approaches so he doesn't startle the cow. She doesn't want him to touch her or even get near her at first, so he keeps a little distance. She might be on the ground right now but if she gets scared enough she could get up and charge him--cows in the middle of calving are unpredictable--so he just waits. 

As hard as she's working and making no progress, Will's guess is that the head is turned around wrong and getting the calf stuck, and that's a problem that's not going to solve itself. He waits until he's sure the cow isn't going to charge him or kick him and then, between contractions, he slides his gloved hand along the calf's leg and into the cow, trying to feel for the head. He feels along the leg--the head should be there, pointing parallel to the front legs, but it isn't--and along the shoulder and neck. The cow pushes against him and he feels like the contraction might just break his arm as the massive muscles bear down with incredible force, but he waits till it passes before trying again. There's the head, turned back along the left shoulder; he waits through another contraction and pushes the calf back in a little so he can hook his fingers in the calf's nose and mouth and pull the head in line with the legs.

Will can barely get his damn arm out of the way before the calf shifts into a better position and the next push gets the calf halfway out. One more ought to do it, Will thinks, so with the next push, Will pulls carefully on the calf's front legs and out it comes. "It's a girl," Will says cheerfully. She's a little on the small side, it looks like, but she's already breathing and looking around and that's a good sign. "Good girl. You did it."

"Is she going to be all right?" MacKenzie asks. 

"Hope so," Will says. He doesn't immediately leave the pen, but hangs around for a minute to help the newborn get to her feet. She's small and shaky, but with a little help from Will and some prodding from the cow she manages to get her feet under her and before too long, both little ones are nursing and the cow seems content. He watches them for a few minutes, then joins MacKenzie on the other side. 

"They're just adorable," she says, watching the babies with their mother. "Is it very common to have twins?"

Will peels off his gloves and washes up. "No," he says, "not really. I've only had a few sets of twins. Last time, the cow decided she didn't want the first calf and kept kicking him off. There's all kinds of tricks you can try to get a cow to accept a calf she doesn't want and I tried them all but she was damn stubborn. We ended up bottlefeeding him--well, it was mostly Emma. She raised that calf like he was her pet or something."

"I don't think I realized how hard it is to run a place like this," MacKenzie says softly. "It seems so easy from the outside, and then there are things like this, where so much can go wrong."

"It's hard work but it's great." He can't imagine doing anything else, even though he's had a whole other career; it just wasn't for him. He likes _this_ life.

MacKenzie kisses his cheek, one of the few parts of him that doesn't smell like cow. "Thanks for letting me be a part of it," she says.

They watch the mama and her babies a little while longer, and when Will's fairly sure the mama won't kick off one of the babies (though he'll check on them frequently through the next few days) they head back to the house. Will strips off his boots and coveralls right in the laundry room at the back of the house and the coveralls go straight in the washer. They're just a little too disgusting to be allowed anywhere else in the house, even for a minute. Then he takes himself straight to the shower. The hot water feels good everywhere, but especially so on his now-aching arm and he lingers there for a little while in hopes that the warmth will force his stiff muscles to relax. It's only partially successful.

When he finally comes downstairs again in clean jeans and an old Oregon sweatshirt, MacKenzie is pulling a pizza out of the oven. "Hey," he says, "when did you get that?"

"I took a little detour from the airport and stopped at that take-and-bake pizza place in town on the way in," she says. "I figured you'd been in the barn for a while and hadn't eaten, so I got something that would keep until we were ready."

"You are the actual best," he tells her, and gets a couple of Ninkasis from the fridge. He goes to start a fire in the fireplace in the living room while MacKenzie slices the pizza, then they take their beer and pizza to the couch and eat there, instead of at the table. It's much warmer there, and cozier; MacKenzie curls her feet under her and leans against him and when he doesn't eat his pizza crusts, she steals them off his plate and eats them herself. He's tired from working with the cow and she's tired from her flight, so they don't talk much. They just eat and enjoy each other's company in relative quiet.

Will finishes his food and puts his plate and beer bottle aside. His arm and elbow are stiff and achy and he shrugs, flexing his arm to try to work out the stiffness.

"Sore?" MacKenzie asks.

"Yeah, a little bit."

"Come here." She shifts on the couch beside him and tugs at his sweatshirt. "Take this off and I'll see what I can do to help."

Well, he's not going to say no to whatever she's got in mind. Will pulls off his sweatshirt and leans back against the couch. She starts at his shoulder, slowly working her way down his arm, and Will quickly realizes this is probably the best massage he's ever had. When she gets to his elbow, she slows down a little, digging her thumbs in a bit more above and below the joint. "This is the elbow you hurt in high school, isn't it?" she asks softly. 

"Yeah," he says. "Playing baseball. I had a mess-you-up breaking ball."

"I have no idea what that is."

"It's a catch-all term for several kinds of pitches that don't travel directly towards the batter," he explains. He's tired, they've had a few beers, and what she's doing to his arm is relaxing, so his words are soft and a little lazy. "Like a curveball. You put some spin on it so it dives down toward the plate. The harder you snap it, the more it breaks. Though you're really not supposed to do that too much when you're still growing. This is why."

"Mmhmm." He's pretty sure MacKenzie still has no idea what he's talking about, and it's fine. "Is this helping?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." 

She continues working her way down his arm, all the way to his hand, and he wouldn't have thought that having his hand massaged would feel good but it does and by the time she's finished, he's half asleep. "Go to bed, Billy," she murmurs. "You're dead on your feet. Go on."

"I should put out the fire," he says. 

"Don't worry about it, I'll do it," she assures him. "Go on. I'll be up in a minute."

It's strange to haul himself upstairs without his nightly routine of locking all the doors and checking to make sure that everything is in its place--but nice, too, knowing someone else is doing it, that he's not in the house alone. And he's tired enough that he isn't even aware of her joining him in bed some time later.

He _is_ aware of her when he wakes, though. Her back is pressed against his chest and her hips pushed against him and her skin smells sweet and warm. Will glances at the clock and sighs. It's too early to be awake, even on a farm, but it's late enough that there's no point in going back to sleep. His arm is stiff and sore but nowhere near as much as he expects; he stretches to work out a little of the stiffness and slides his arm under the comforter again, into that pocket of warmth their bodies have created.

"Good morning," MacKenzie murmurs softly. She stretches and presses her hips back against him and he slides his arm around her waist, holding her close.

"Didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't," she says. "I'm on east coast time."

"Mmhmm."

"You need to be up soon?"

"Yeah," he says. "But not yet."

"Good." She shifts in his arms and turns to face him, hooking her leg over his hip to bring herself even closer. "Kiss me, Billy."

The kiss is slow and careful and it's something to savor, knowing it's just the two of them in this big, empty house, huddled together against the cold. They kiss until MacKenzie whines and pushes him onto his back and straddles him, her body fitting perfectly to his as it always has. The shift pulls a draft of cold air under the comforter and she shivers, yanking the comforter up around them and keeping close to him for warmth. "I should turn up the heat," Will says.

"In a little while," she says. "Not right now."

"Yes m'am."

"Can we…" She grinds her hips down against him and he groans, pressing up against her, needing the contact. "I know we said we'd take this slow, I just…" Her voice drops, not quite shy, but thick with emotion. "I need to feel what it's like to _be_ with you again."

And that is something Will hasn't realized he needs this badly, until this moment. "Please," he says softly. 

She reaches down to tug at his boxers and he pushes down her thin little sleep pants and it's skin against skin, sliding against her, sliding _into_ her, and it's probably some kind of cliche to say he feels massive _relief_ but he does; it's like they've pushed aside all of the crap and come together again and it's just as good as it used to be. MacKenzie is as beautiful as ever, all sleepy eyes and tousled hair and flushed skin, and as much as he wants to close his eyes and enjoy the feeling he keeps them open, drinking in the sight of her (already saving up memories for when she's gone again). And she's more insistent, Will thinks, or maybe it's the weight of being apart so long makes her seem that way, but he isn't going to complain, not when she's riding him hard enough to bring him to an unexpectedly quick, hard climax; he has just enough presence of mind to push his hand between them and give her the friction she needs to get there too. She shudders and whines and her fingers curl into his shoulders almost painfully hard (Will doesn't care, he _so_ doesn't care). 

She eases herself down against his chest and rests there, shivering a little; Will pulls the comforter up around her and her shivering eases in the warmth. 

"Can we do it again?" she asks after a moment, and the hint of laughter in her voice bubbles over when he tips her onto her back and kisses her deeply. He's got to get up and feed the cows, but it's not quite sunup yet. They can wait just a little longer.

Will's been waiting for years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit 2/16/2014:
> 
> There is now a concurrent fic featuring Emma, called _[Lullaby of Birdland](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1195332)_. Will and Mac's story will continue to stand on its own, but if you'd like to see a little of them from the other side and more of Emma, I would love it if you gave it a read. The two stories will run roughly in parallel.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: There is now a concurrent fic featuring Emma, called _[Lullaby of Birdland](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1195332)_. Will and Mac's story will continue to stand on its own, but if you'd like to see a little of them from the other side and more of Emma, I would love it if you gave it a read and a comment if you're so inclined. The two stories will run roughly in parallel and chapter one of that fic happens just before this one.

It's early in the evening Sunday when Emma calls, but it's MacKenzie's phone that rings, not Will's. MacKenzie's resting her head against Will's chest as they're curled up on the couch, though, so Will can hear basically everything Emma says even if he's not trying to listen to their conversation. _Let me talk to her,_ Will mouths, gesturing to the phone, but MacKenzie brushes him off so she can talk to Emma. They make plans to meet up for lunch when MacKenzie is back in New York, then MacKenzie says, "I'm going to give you to your father now. He's acting like it's been a hundred years since he's talked to you instead of just a week."

Will scowls at MacKenzie ( _I am not!_ ) and takes the phone. "Hey, kiddo," he says. "I miss you."

"I miss you too, Daddy," Emma says.

"You feeling okay?" Will wonders if he'll ever really stop worrying about her. He was already a worrier and then she got sick and he feels like he's falling down on his end of the parent-child relationship. "Getting enough sleep? Eating actual food?"

"Yeah. All of that stuff. I'm feeling a lot better."

"Good, good."

"Spring break is in a few weeks. I think I want to come home for it, since I didn't get to come home for Christmas."

"Of course you can." Will would have gotten her a ticket earlier, but she hadn't asked about spring break and he kind of assumed she'd have plans with her friends. It'll be good to have her home, even if it's just for a week. "Go ahead and buy a ticket." She has a credit card in her name, but it's for emergencies and for things like this; Will still pays the bills. "Just tell me when you're coming in and I'll pick you up."

"I'll take you to the airport and pick you up when you get back," MacKenzie chimes in.

"Okay. Thanks, Daddy. And tell Mac thanks too. I just want to come home for a while." She's quiet for a moment, then adds, "I guess I should go ahead and get that ticket. I'll forward all the emails, okay?"

"Sounds good. Love you, kiddo."

"Love you too, Daddy. Bye, Mac."

"Bye, honey."

Will slides the phone into MacKenzie's back jeans pocket and she laughs a little. "You're just looking for any excuse to get your hands on my ass, aren't you?"

"I really hope I hit 'end call' before I slipped that in your pocket," Will says. "Otherwise, Emma is now scarred for life."

"She's in college," MacKenzie says easily. "I'm sure she's heard worse."

"True." He gives the phone in her pocket a little poke, pushing it further in, then slides his hands across her ass. He's not sure if MacKenzie is aware how good her rearview looks in denim, but he intends to make sure she knows. 

She presses back against his hands and then slides off him. "Take me to bed, Billy," she says.

Not that Will needs telling twice. He catches her by the waist as they make their way upstairs, leaving a haphazard trail of clothes behind them as they go, just because they can--it's just the two of them in the house, after all--and by the time they make it to the bedroom she's only wearing a pair of panties that are best described as microscopic. "Jesus, MacKenzie," he says, hooking his fingers in the tiny bit of fabric. He's never going to get tired of looking at her, with her gorgeous breasts and tiny waist and those legs that just go on and on for miles.

"You like?" she asks hopefully, catching her lower lip between her teeth in a way that makes her look vulnerable and sweet and completely irresistable.

"I _do_." He pulls her onto the bed with him and she slides her body on top of his and leans down to kiss him and God, he's so not ready for her to leave. (He never is.) When she kisses him he can't imagine ever _not_ being with her again, because being with her and feeling the way she completes him in a way he thought he'd never find again is the best feeling in the world and he never wants to lose it. Even when there's a whole country between them, it's still there.

MacKenzie presses her hips down against his and sighs, arching her back into his hands, and catches his mouth in a kiss that's messy and hungry and it makes Will a little greedy. (Screw that, not a _little_ greedy. More like fucking ravenous.) "Get these off," he groans, pushing at her little scrap of underwear, and she pushes up on her hands and knees to shimmy out of them.

And then she freezes.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"I think it's my phone."

"Just let it ring," he says, reaching for her again, but she shakes her head. 

"What if it's Emma again?" she says. "Where is it? In my jeans, which are… somewhere on the stairs…" She slides off of him, making little sounds of dismay as she hurries through the chilly bedroom and out into the hall (Will would think these sounds were cute if he wasn't half-insane from wanting her right now). He hears her voice in the hall and then she reappears in the doorway, phone in hand. 

"I'm sorry, it's work, but I have to take it," she says, her voice soft and apologetic. "It'll just be a few minutes." Then she disappears into the hall again and Will rolls over, groaning in frustration.

*****

At some point in his waiting for MacKenzie to reappear, he dozes off, and later wakes up to realize that a) he's drooled face-first into the pillow, b) his ass is freezing from falling asleep naked without the comforter, and c) MacKenzie's side of the bed is still empty. He slides out of bed and pulls on an old sweatshirt and pajama pants, then goes to check on MacKenzie.

She's sitting at his dining table in her jeans, his discarded shirt, and wrapped in a throw from the couch, with her laptop and a notebook, talking to some guy on Skype. One of her producers, he guesses, and it looks like this conversation is going to take them into the wee hours of the morning. Keeping out of the sight line of her laptop camera, he slides into the kitchen to make MacKenzie a cup of tea, and though he's not listening to her conversation he can't help but hear a few words slip by over the hum of the tea kettle. He catches something about an Operation Genoa, a general (or colonel?) named Stomtonovitch, and several references to hostages and sarin gas. Will's not a politician or a military man, but anyone with half a brain knows that sarin is not something to fuck around with.

This must be the big story she thought was going nowhere, and it must now be getting a second wind.

When the tea's done, he puts the pot and a mug on the table near her; she looks up and brushes her fingers against his hand in silent thanks, and turns back to her producer.

Will goes back upstairs alone. He doesn't feel right about eavesdropping on a story that sounds like will get a whole lot of people in some serious shit. It sounds like the kind of thing you hear about on one of those special reports with Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite, one of those things you don't forget where you were when you heard it, kind of the way he remembers getting up early one morning in his sophomore year of college to watch a space shuttle launch only to see it disintegrate on national tv. And he doesn't want to hear about it until he's supposed to hear about it.

He goes back to bed, but doesn't sleep. MacKenzie comes back upstairs around four in the morning, shuffling her feet and rubbing her eyes. "I have to be at the airport in a few hours," she murmurs, sliding back into bed with him. 

"Get some sleep," he says. He has a feeling this is going to be a spectacularly long day for her. "I'll wake you with enough time to get there." She nods and curls against him and Will wraps his arms around her. They only have an hour or two now, but he'll take it.

"I heard a little of your conversation," he says after a moment. "But I won't ask questions and I won't say a word to anyone about it. I just wanted you to know that."

MacKenzie sighs and nods against his chest. "I know you wouldn't say anything," she says. "That's why I didn't ask."

*****

It's raining a few weeks later when he picks Emma up at the airport. She looks a little like the weather personified, a little gray and cloudy, but Will hopes it's just from being crammed into an airplane all day after getting up at an ungodly hour. "Hey, kiddo."

She drops her bag and hugs him. He expects it to be a quick hug and an "Okay, let's go," but she doesn't let go right away and Will frowns. "You okay?"

"I'm tired," she says. 

Will pats her on the back and she lets go and picks up her bag. "Did you bring a suitcase?"

"Yeah. The little one. I didn't bring much stuff."

They pick up her suitcase at the baggage claim and Will carries it out to the truck for her. "Can't wait for you to see the new calves," he says. "Got one on a bottle, her mama wouldn't take her. You can help me with her while you're here, if you want. Remember that one you raised all by yourself?"

"Yeah. That was fun." Emma buckles her seatbelt and stares out the window. The glass fogs when Will starts the engine and she rubs at the window with her sleeve. 

"Anything special you want to do while you're home?"

"I don't know."

Will glances over at her. She looks tired. And down. And a lot of other things that are easy to hide on the phone but not in person, and he desperately wants to fix it but isn't really sure how. "Okay," he says. "I know what you need." 

"What?"

"You'll see." He doesn't know, not really, but it might be good for a few minutes' worth of a good mood. "You hungry?"

"Kind of."

"Okay." He doesn't take the next turn that would take them out to the farm; instead, he goes straight, towards town. There's a little place downtown that they haven't been very often in the last few years, but when she was younger she loved it. He ends up parking a couple blocks away because there's usually nothing closer, but Emma isn't fooled. 

"Doughnuts!"

"Why not?" Voodoo Doughnut is a little over the top and ridiculous for Will's taste, but he knows Emma has her favorites and it's not something you can get in New York City--a little taste of home to welcome her back. 

Will has a bacon maple bar and coffee and Emma orders a Miami Vice Berry (Will has no fucking idea what that actually is, all he knows is that it's coated in what looks like flourescent blue and pink sugar) and a carton of milk. "What?" she says, when he eyes the milk. "You know I like milk with my doughnuts. Their coffee is gross."

"Says the girl eating a doughnut covered in pink and blue sugar."

"Says the man eating a doughnut with bacon on it," she retorts, and Will doesn't know if it's the sugar rush or the fact that they're eating these doughnuts under a velvet painting of a sobbing Conan O'Brien while sitting at a table with a sign that reads _I got VD in Eugene_ , but she looks a little happier. (Or at least a little less cloudy.)

"Hey, I could be eating the zombie doughnut stabbed through the heart with a pretzel and bleeding raspberry jelly," Will teases, "but it feels a little like cannibalism. I'll take the bacon one, thanks."

"Bacon on a doughnut is the grossest. thing. ever..."

They finish their doughnuts and head home, and while Will expects her to disappear upstairs, she doesn't. Emma's only upstairs long enough to unpack her suitcase, and then she's back downstairs again, helping him make dinner and cleaning up afterward. Will is surprised, but glad. He hopes she won't spend her entire break closed up in her room. They chat a little about school, but Emma doesn't have much to say other than she hates music theory and still loves piano. 

"How's your roommate?" Will asks. "You two still getting along?"

"She's fine," Emma says. "We get along fine. She worries too much, though."

"About what?"

"Me, I guess. If I'm going to get sick again or something. She's always asking me if I feel okay."

"Do you?"

"I guess…" She trails off, and Will doesn't immediately respond; he waits to see if she'll elaborate without him prompting her. When he doesn't say anything, she adds, "I'm just tired. That's all. I'm going to sleep all week and enjoy this _beautiful_ Oregon weather and then I'll feel better."

Will hopes that's all it is.

*****

Later that night, he sits down to write an email to MacKenzie. 

_Emma seems kind of down_ , he writes. _Have you noticed anything weird with her lately? She seems a little off, to me. Not her usual self. Not sure how to cheer her up. What do you think?_

He rereads what he's written a few times and then decides he sounds ridiculous. If she says she's tired, then she's tired, and maybe a week of good sleep is what she needs. He has no idea what it's like to live in a dorm at college since he lived at home when he was in school, but he can't imagine that four girls sharing a small space wouldn't get crowded and annoying after a while; maybe she just nees a little space. He drags the message over to his drafts folder and closes the window.

No point in overreacting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, [Voodoo Doughnut](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_Doughnut) is a real thing. I am not making this up. And it is freaking delicious.
> 
> [Chapter 2](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1195332/chapters/2499733) of _Lullaby of Birdland_ follows this chapter.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This chapter follows [chapter 2](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1195332/chapters/2499733) of _Lullaby of Birdland_ , if you're reading both fics.)

Will: Hey, are you there?

MacKenzie: Yes. I thought you were going to call?

Will: I was, but now I need to tell you something and I don't want Emma to hear me talking about her. It'll just make her feel weird, but I need to talk to you about it because I don't know what to do. 

MacKenzie: okay… what happened?

Will: She told me today that she wants to transfer to Oregon next year.

MacKenzie: What?! Why?

Will: Well, she's been quiet all week, so I asked her today if something was wrong, and she eventually said she went to talk to an advisor at Oregon a couple of days ago so she could find out about how to transfer. And then I asked her why, and she said she misses "everything" and that NY is too big and "too much" and she doesn't know many people and she just wants to come home. 

MacKenzie: I had no idea.

Will: Me either. 

MacKenzie: What did you say?

Will: I told her she better think about it good and hard because she worked hard to get there and she has a ton of opportunities there that she wouldn't have here. 

MacKenzie: Wouldn't you like to have her come home? I don't think you were crazy about her coming here in the first place. And I know how scared you were when she got sick with you so far away.

Will: Of course I would! But I don't want her to come home and then regret it. I don't care whether she goes to school here or there or somewhere else as long as she's happy and gets her degree.

MacKenzie: You don't care?

Will: God, yes, I care. Of course I *care*. I'm just saying it doesn't matter to me which school makes her happy as long as we can pay for it and she actually finishes. I just want her to be happy. And she's not.

MacKenzie: I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you--I mean, I agree with you, she shouldn't just *quit* without thinking about this carefully. I just had no idea she was so unhappy. And if she's that miserable, maybe she should come home.

Will: Maybe so. I don't know. Shit, this is hard.

MacKenzie: I know, honey. And you're doing the best you can.

Will: It doesn't feel like it. 

MacKenzie: Well, you are. You're a good father.

Will: How is it you know exactly what to say to make me feel less like crap?

MacKenzie: Blind luck, I suppose.

Will: I love you for it.

MacKenzie: I love you too.

Will: How have you been?

MacKenzie: Busy. Work is… God, it's so busy. The story. We're going to air it soon. Very soon, as in less than a few weeks from now.

Will: Yeah?

MacKenzie: Yeah.

Will: Wow.

MacKenzie: I wish I could tell you more. It's so…

Will: I know you can't. It's okay. I know you have something huge and I can't wait to see what you do with it. Well, not "can't wait" as in "looking forward to it" because it sound like heads are gonna roll, but you know what I mean.

MacKenzie: I do know what you mean. I want you to come to New York when we air it. I won't be able to give you much notice, so I understand if you can't come out. But I really want you in the room when it happens. Emma too, of course.

Will: It's the biggest story you've ever done and I won't miss it. Just say when.

MacKenzie: I will.

Will: I'm proud of you for this. I don't even have to know the details to be proud of you. You're doing something huge and it's going to be great--okay, not great that it *happened*, but great that you're putting it out there.

*****

It turns out that MacKenzie can only give him two days' notice two weeks later when they decide to go ahead with the broadcast, and the only flight he can get will make it a tight squeeze to get to ACN on time. He doesn't check a bag, to save some time, but between the time it takes to get a cab and some increased security at the AWM building, it takes him so long to get there that the broadcast has already started. Emma's already there, sitting in the back of the control room watching, and he slips into a seat beside her. 

Since he's already overheard a few things, the basic premise of the report is not a huge surprise to Will: The US military used sarin gas during a hostage recovery labeled Operation Genoa, far out in the Hindu Kush. But the details--Jesus, the details. He can't even get his head around it. Who the _fuck_ thought this was a good idea? It's a war crime, a huge fuck up of _massive_ proportions and he feels a little sick at the idea of what the fallout from this might be.

When the broadcast is over, MacKenzie pulls off her headset and makes her way over to Emma and Will. There are some introductions--the president of the news division is there, Charlie Skinner, and a guy named Dantana who turns out to be the producer behind much of the report--and then it's just the three of them again. "What did you think?"

"That was amazing," he tells her, rubbing her shoulder a little. He wants to hug her, but he's not going to embarrass her in her workplace, so that will have to do. "It took a lot of guts to pull that off and you did it. How is this not going to be the only thing people are talking about for months?"

"I know," she says, and her voice is a little shaky with nerves. "I don't know what will happen next. There's been no response from the Pentagon. I don't know what that means."

"It means you should just let it go for a little bit," he tells her. "You did all you can do; now it's time to just wait and see where the dust settles."

"It was really good," Emma chimes in. She looks a little stunned by the whole thing; unlike Will, she had no idea what this was about. "I'm glad I got to see it here. Thanks for letting me sit in."

"Of course, honey," MacKenzie says. She sighs, a little shaky and uneven. "I think I need a drink. Not to celebrate. I don't think this is something to celebrate. Mostly just to say… there it is. It's done."

Emma goes back to her dorm with a promise to meet up with Will tomorrow while MacKenzie is at work, and Will and MacKenzie go out on their own, to the karaoke bar across the street which, MacKenzie informs him, is a favorite hangout of ACN staffers.

"The food is cheap and the drinks are decent," she tells him. MacKenzie orders a martini and Will has a beer and she leans against him, lightly tipping her glass back and forth between her fingers. "I wasn't sure how I would feel when this was over," she says. "Accomplished? Proud? But I'm not, really. Mostly just relieved. And of course it isn't really over. There will be so much more to do when the DoD finally releases a statement, there will be follow ups and it will just go on and on...should we even have opened up this can of worms?"

"I don't know," Will says. "What I _do_ know is that tonight, I saw an amazingly talented executive producer put together the most incredible news broadcast I've ever seen and I am so, _so_ proud of you." He can't believe that this amazing, incredibly talented, _wonderful_ person loves him, and right now he feels a little in awe of her. 

And he wants to spend the rest of his life with her.

How that will happen, he doesn't know--the distance between them is a problem, and a huge one, but he thinks that if he asks and she says yes, then that will be enough to help them work it out, even if it takes a while. He wasn't kidding when he told Emma that he and MacKenzie had a lot to work out. They still do, even if things feel really comfortable between them now, but Will wants the security of having a promise and a commitment and knowing that even if they can't put it together _right now_ , it's waiting for them down the road.

So Monday morning while MacKenzie is at work and Emma is in class, Will goes jewelry shopping. He can't afford the likes of Tiffany or Harry Winston, as much as he'd love to give her something spectacular, but this is New York City and there are plenty of options. By the end of the day he's acquired a small but lovely diamond, a bouquet of white roses (she's mentioned in passing that they are her favorite), and the ingredients for a very special dinner.

MacKenzie is later getting home than she said she would be, which Will kind of expected, given what they aired last night. "That smells wonderful," she says, giving him a tired smile. "You really didn't have to go to all this trouble. And roses? Billy. You shouldn't have."

"It's to celebrate all your hard work," Will says. "And look, it's not like I get to spoil you every day, okay, so humor me a little? I'm leaving tomorrow, have to get in all the spoiling I can before I go."

"I suppose I can allow myself to be spoiled," she says, leaning up to kiss his cheek, then slipping out of her shoes. She sighs a little as her feet flex and her calves stretch and relax after a day in heels."God, today was…" She leans against him a little and her voice softens. "We got a response from the DoD, a lot of the legal sort of thing that's meant to be intimidating, like, 'We are considering any and all remedies, including under the Espionage Act.' And Stomtonovitch is claiming we edited him out of context but I saw the raw footage, Will. He said it. 'We used Sarin.' We've got him on tape, saying it."

"Well, if you've got him on tape and he said it, he can't turn around and say he didn't say it, can he?"

"No. He doesn't get to take it back because he doesn't like the fallout."

"C'mere." Will slides his arms around her and rubs her back lightly. "It's easy for me to say don't worry about it, because I'm not in it, but you've researched the hell out of this and you've worked your ass off on it and if you know it's good, then just stand your ground."

"God, I'm glad you're here. How do you know just the thing to say to make me feel less like crap?"

"Blind luck, I guess," he says, kissing her hair.

"I'm just going to change," she says. "I need to get out of these clothes. It won't take but a minute."

Will goes back to the kitchen to continue the dinner preparations and MacKenzie reappears a few minutes later in a soft wrap dress and bare feet, her hair loose on her shoulders. The dress just flirts with being the tiniest bit too low-cut to be appropriate for anything but a date, and the soft material clings to her curves and ends just below mid-thigh, exposing the long lines of her legs. "Wow," he says. "Not that what you had on before wasn't 'wow', but… wow."

Her cheeks flush faintly pink from the praise and she can't hide a pleased smile. She leans up on her toes to brush a soft kiss against his mouth before slipping past him to turn on the small flat-screen tv mounted on the far end of the kitchen counter. "Sloan Sabbith is doing a follow-up segment on Genoa tonight," she says, almost apologetic. "If it was anything else, I'd catch it tomorrow, but…"

"God, no," he says. "Of course you have to see it. Dinner won't be ready for a little while, anyway."

Will pulls ingredients from the fridge for salads and MacKenzie pours them each a glass of wine. She takes her glass and settles at one of the stools at the counter to watch Sloan Sabbith interview a sergeant from the Genoa broadcast; Will is distracted enough by MacKenzie's long, bare legs dangling from the stool and the ring burning a hole in the pocket of his jeans that he hardly hears what the guy or Sloan is saying and accidentally spills a container of cherry tomatoes that roll all over the kitchen floor and out into the dining area. He's on his hands and knees scooping up the last of them when he hears Sloan Sabbith say, "I'm sorry, did you just say that you sustained a traumatic brain injury?"

Will scrambles to his feet. "What did she just say?"

"Traumatic brain injury," MacKenzie says softly, and carefully puts down her wine glass as Sloan suddenly goes to a commercial break. "Eric Sweeney didn't tell us he had a fucking TBI. Do you know what that means? He could very well have problems with his judgement and memory that we weren't aware of before we used him as one of the key witnesses in our story. Jesus Christ, this whole story is falling apart. I have to call Elliot."

Will doesn't know what to do other than sit back and watch while MacKenzie goes into damage control mode. There's nothing he can say to reassure her, because he doesn't even fully understand what's going on. He slides onto the stool beside her and just waits while she calls her producers and the president of the news division, and once in a while she touches his hand briefly but otherwise, there's really nothing that he can do. He feels just as helpless as he did when Emma was sick--maybe more, since this problem is one that's completely out of his worldview. 

And although he's disappointed that he can't ask her the question he's been thinking about all day, it'll keep. There's always next time.

"I have to go back to the office," she says. "We have to pick this story apart and see what else we're missing. I'm so sorry, Billy, I know you had something special planned."

"Don't worry about it," he says, sliding his arm around her shoulders. "This can't wait."

"And you're leaving in the morning."

"I'll be back sometime soon," he tells her. "Go on, get your stuff. You can take this with you," he says, gesturing at dinner, "in case you have to pull an all-nighter."

"God, I love you." She kisses him and slides off the stool. "I hope I'm back before you have to leave in the morning."

But she doesn't come back in a few hours and she doesn't come back in the morning. Will falls asleep on the couch and wakes up to a text from MacKenzie apologizing for not being able to see him off. He replies and tells her that he loves her, then packs his bags and meets Emma for breakfast before her first class.

"Where's MacKenzie?" she asks, as they settle into a booth at the restaurant. "I thought she was coming."

"There's a problem with the Genoa story," he says, lowering his voice so no one around them can hear. "She had to go in to work last night and she's still there."

"What kind of problem?"

Will fills her in, whispering behind his menu. MacKenzie hadn't told him not to say anything, but he still feels like it's best to be safe. When he's finished, Emma looks terrified. 

"Oh no," she says. "Will MacKenzie get in trouble if the story is wrong? Will she have to go to jail or anything?"

"No, I don't think so," Will says. It hadn't actually crossed his mind until now, and it's not an outcome he wants to dwell on. "She believes the story is good and as far as I know, she's sticking by it. I'm sure it's just coming down to the--it's not like the government is going to say 'oops, you caught us' and stick out their hands to get smacked. Nobody likes consequences. I think in the long run, it's going to be okay. It's just going to be hard for her right now."

"Yeah, I bet." Emma doesn't look that reassured, though, and Will doesn't feel so positive himself.

"You hanging in there?"

"Yeah, I'm okay."

"Still thinking about that transfer?"

"I don't know… I can't decide." 

She looks genuinely torn about it and Will decides not to push. "It's okay, kiddo," he says. "If you want to talk about it, just call me. Call me anyway. Keep me in the loop."

"I will."

His flight out of La Guardia is long and uneventful, but during his layover in Salt Lake City he learns his flight to Eugene has been delayed--mechanical problems, or something, and it's going to take a while. So Will finds a restaurant in the terminal with a television that's turned to ACN and settles in to wait. Might as well watch the news while he's killing time.

He expects that there will be some reference to Genoa on tonight's news, but he doesn't expect to see a retraction as the top story of the night. A _retraction_. They're taking the whole Genoa story back, every word of it, though there's no explanation given. The anchor looks like he wants to vomit and Will can't really blame him, and he desperately wants to know what's going on with MacKenzie, how she's taking this, if she's okay. Though he texts her now, he doesn't expect a response until she's done with the show.

_Mac, what happened? Call me._

Will lingers in the restaurant for a while, checking his phone occasionally to see if she's responded, but she doesn't. He checks again just before getting on the plane; still no word. When he lands in Eugene, he tries to call her, but gets sent straight to voicemail. The third time, he leaves a message.

"Honey, I saw the show… what happened? Did something else happen? Are you all right? Call me back when you can, I don't care what time it is. I love you. And I'm still proud of you."

She still doesn't answer.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading _Lullaby of Birdland_ , [Chapter 3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1195332/chapters/2684293) of that story happens prior to this one.

Will doesn't hear from MacKenzie until the next day. He's in the middle of his morning chores when she calls, and he drops what he's doing when he sees her name on the caller ID screen.

"What the hell happened?" he asks. "Are you okay?"

MacKenzie's quiet for a moment before she answers. "That new producer," she says, very carefully, like she's working hard to keep her voice steady. "The one I brought up from Washington while Jim was on another assignment. He cut the raw footage of the Stomtonovitch interview to make it look like he said we had sarin. Stomtonovitch never said it, Sweeney was either making stuff up or his TBI made him confused, and the other guy was trying to back Sweeney up. None of it was real."

"Shit."

"It's a fucking mess. We had to take back the whole story."

"I saw. Are you okay?"

"This is all my fault," she says, instead of answering his question. "It's my responsibility as the executive producer to ensure nothing like this happens, and I didn't figure it out until it was too late. This should never have gotten this far."

"It's not your fault," Will says, leaning against the side of his truck. "You have a staff, right? And none of them caught it either? Look, I only saw the end product, not the process of getting there, but I'm pretty damn sure if all your staff and all your lawyers didn't catch anything, you can't be expected to catch it either. It's a fucking mess but it's not your fault."

She doesn't answer, but he hears a soft sound, a shaky breath that he knows means she's trying not to cry (or has failed at that and is trying to keep him from hearing it) and he wishes he was still there with her in New York--not that he could _do_ anything to help, really, but at least he could be there. "It's not your fault," he says, feeling useless.

"It _is_ ," she insists. "I've ruined Elliot's career, the network's reputation--there are already petitions going demanding that we be fired, corporate's been fielding thousands of angry emails and phone calls, there are protesters outside the building…."

"It still isn't your fault," he says again.

"You don't _know_ that, Will," she says. "There's so much that happened behind the scenes that I couldn't tell you about so trust me when I say it was my fault. I should have prevented this."

That much might be true, but Will doesn't care. _She_ wasn't the one who made shit up so the story would say what she wanted it to say, so as far as Will's concerned, it's not her fault. "What can I do?" he asks. "Do you want me to come back? I can be there next week."

"No," MacKenzie says. "I mean, yes. I do, I always want you here, but you shouldn't. I will have massive damage control to do and I'm not going to be very good company."

"I don't care if you're not good company," Will says. "I can be moral support."

"You can be moral support from Oregon," MacKenzie says, sounding like she's trying to convince herself, more than him. "You're coming out for Emma's concert in May, right? I'll see you then. It's not that far away."

"It's _weeks_ away," he says.

"I'll be fine, Billy. I'll be fine."

Will isn't convinced she is or will be, and over the next few weeks there are many times he wishes he'd ignored her insistence that he stay home and gone to see her anyway. Every nightly news show has the Genoa retraction as its top story for the next few days and keeps mentioning it in the weeks that follow; the _New York Times_ , the _Washington Post_ \--even the fucking _Register-Guard_ print stories about it. MacKenzie goes for days without calling him, and then when she finally does, she sounds so stressed and miserable that Will just wants to get on a plane and go to her.

But every time he says he's coming to New York, she puts her foot down and tells him not to come out until Emma's concert, and as much as he wants to help, he has to respect her wishes. If he just barges into her space when she asks him not to, he could make things worse, rather than better.

So he waits until mid-May, when he'd planned to visit anyway for Emma's end-of-the-semester concert. She wasn't able to participate in fall term's concert, because she was in the hospital, so he's looking forward to seeing her perform--he hasn't seen her perform since her last concert in high school. He also hopes that their time together will be a good distraction for MacKenzie.

He arrives in New York on a Sunday afternoon and takes a cab to her apartment. He's not prepared for how she looks when he sees her; she's still in her pajamas and the dark circles under her eyes aren't the kind that come from only a night or two of poor sleep. He drops his bags and pulls her into his arms and she sighs against his chest.

"You're here," she says softly.

"I would have come earlier," he says, stroking her hair.

"It was enough to know that you would have," she says. "It's still horrible, but I don't want to talk about it tonight. Let's take Emma to dinner and celebrate the end of her first year of college."

"Do you feel like going out?"

"I cooped myself up here all weekend," she says. "Let's go out."

She goes to shower and change and when she emerges again, the dark circles are still there but she looks determined not to be miserable, and Will thinks that that, at least, is a step in a good direction.

He isn't prepared for the way Emma looks, anymore than he was prepared for MacKenzie. She has more energy in her step than she's had since before she left for school in the fall, and definitely looks happier than she's been since she got sick. Will is beyond glad to see it, after seeing her so down over spring break. "I have something to tell you," Emma says, once they've settled into the restaurant and placed their orders.

"You've decided what you want to do about school?" Will asks.

"Mm-hmm," Emma says, nodding. "I'm staying here. In New York. I still kind of want to come home, but I think if I don't give it at least another year, I'll regret it, especially when I get to start my journalism classes next year."

"Good for you, kiddo," he says. "You had a hard year this year, but I think it's going to get easier for you." There's a very small part of Will that's disappointed that she won't be coming home, because he misses her a lot more than he expected to, but mostly he's just proud of her for making the decision to stick with it.

"And I'll be home all summer," she points out. "It's not like I'm never coming home again."

"I think you're making the right decision, Emma," MacKenzie says. "There's so much for you here in the city."

"And you'll be here," says Emma.

"Well." MacKenzie picks up her wine glass, taking a long sip. "I'm glad I was able to be here for you this year. I suppose Molly is happy you're staying?"

"I haven't told her yet." Emma smiles and looks down, fidgeting with the place setting. "I told her when I decided, I had to tell you first, but then I'd tell her. But I think she'll be happy."

MacKenzie is quiet for most of the rest of dinner; the sense that she's determined not to be miserable fades after a couple of glasses of wine and instead of becoming animated and talkative after a few drinks, as she usually does, she withdraws somewhat, enough that even Emma seems to notice. 

"Oh, man, I'm tired," Emma says when the check comes, waving away a big yawn. It's not that obvious, but Will knows she's faking it. "I should go back to the dorm. Maybe we can get lunch or something tomorrow? I don't have class." She thanks Will for dinner and hugs both him and MacKenzie as she leaves, saying she'll take the subway back to her dorm so they don't have to go out of the way to take her home.

Back at her apartment, MacKenzie slides off her shoes and drops onto the couch with a little sigh. Will comes to sit beside her, sliding his arm around her shoulders. "You want to tell me what's bugging you?" he says gently. "Besides the usual?"

MacKenzie shifts closer and leans her head against his shoulder. "Jerry Dantana is suing ACN," she says. "For wrongful termination. He's claiming it's an institutional failure and he was unfairly singled out for punishment."

"He doesn't have a case," Will says. "Anything the rest of you did wrong was accidental. He did it on _purpose_."

"I know that," MacKenzie says. "But he's suing anyway and God knows how long this is going to drag out and I don't want any part of it." She sighs, smoothing her dress over her knees. "I'm resigning from ACN."

"What?" Will knew she was taking this hard, but he had no idea she was thinking so drastically. It's such a shock that he can't come up with a response other than, "Resigning? Why?"

She shifts against him, drawing her feet half under her and curling her knees into his lap. "Because I can't do any good with this show when just the fact that I'm there is poison. We don't have DoD sources anymore, our military contacts have blacklisted us, we have difficulty booking guests--maybe if I leave, if Elliot leaves, the rest of them can still salvage their careers. I love this job," she says softly, "but I can't do it anymore. This is too big of a fuck up."

"God." He rubs her arm lightly, holding her close, trying to give her whatever little bit of reassurance he can even though he knows it probably doesn't help at all. Her passion for her job is one of the things Will has always admired about her, and he doesn't know how she'll deal with not having that passion in her life anymore. "I'm so sorry. When are you--is it final? Are you sure about this?"

"I'm sure," MacKenzie says. "I've already worked out the details. Effective June first, I will no longer be the executive producer of _Right Now with Elliot Hirsch_. Actually, there won't be a _Right Now_ , since Elliot's leaving too. They're moving Sloan Sabbith to Elliot's timeslot and hiring someone new to take her place on the late news. I don't know what I'm going to do now," she says. "I'm getting a good severance package and I have some savings, and a little income from my grandfather's farm, so it's not imperative that I find something right away. I could use the time to work on my book. I haven't had much time for that lately."

_Or, you could come and live with me,_ Will thinks, but he doesn't suggest it. It feels wrong, somehow, to put that choice on her when things are so uncertain for her. (Which he's well aware sounds ridiculous considering that a couple of months ago he was going to ask her to marry him, but it's different now, in a way he can't quite articulate.) "Whatever you decide, you know I support you," he says. "And whenever you want to visit…"

"You're not going to be able to keep me away."

*****

Emma comes home for the summer in late May. It's good to have her home, although Will realizes that it feels less like she came _home_ and more like she came for a _visit_. Still, the house feels a lot less empty with her here, and he's glad for it. They watch the remainder of MacKenzie's show each night and after the final show airs, MacKenzie calls to tell him that she's going to visit her family in London for a while.

"I haven't spent a good time with them in so long, I can't even remember," she tells him. "It will be good to get away."

"When do you think you'll be back?" he asks.

"I'm not sure," she says. "A few weeks, maybe a month."

"It'll be good for you to get away for a while," Will says, even though he misses her desperately. "Take your time."

They don't talk on the phone as much while MacKenzie is in London, because the time difference is so great. But there is a steady stream of email. MacKenzie writes a lot about how she's missed her family and is enjoying spending time with them, but she writes a lot about ACN, too--she has a lot of anger about the way it ended, about the lawsuit, and Will's no shrink but he thinks it's better that she's pissed at that producer instead of flagellating herself for not discovering his crime sooner. So she writes, and he responds in what he hopes is an encouraging way, and over the weeks she's in London her emails become less about what happened with Genoa and more about what she's going to do next.

At first, her prospects seemed grim. It will be a long time before anyone wants her to produce again, if ever, but her contacts are encouraging her to look into other things--writing, speaking, consulting, and even teaching. The Genoa debacle might be a huge stain on her resume, but she has other things to draw on, she says, and she just has to figure out how to sell them. Will's encouraged by her growing positivity, but there's a part of him that wonders if their talks about her future will ever include talks about _their_ future.

He's afraid to bring it up. He doesn't want her to feel like he wants her to limit her possibilities, especially when she took the end of her career at ACN so hard. So he tries to say encouraging things and stays away from anything that sounds remotely like _well now that you don't have a job, you should move to Oregon and we should get married._

MacKenzie doesn't give him a firm date for when she's leaving London, and she doesn't say what she's doing to do when she does. So it's a surprise when he comes in from his evening chores one day in late July to find a small rental car in his driveway and MacKenzie sitting on his porch swing, smoking a cigarette. 

"I didn't know you were coming back," he says, as he climbs the porch steps. 

She exhales softly and stubs out her cigarette. "I was always coming back."

"I mean--I knew you were coming back," he clarifies. "Eventually. I just didn't know when." She looks good; rested and happy, _relaxed_ even, and Will is relieved to see it. 

" _I_ didn't know when." She stands, stretching a little, and Will realizes she's wearing shorts. He doesn't remember ever seeing her in shorts before; these are khaki, wrinkled from the flight and showing a generous amount of her long legs. "Then I woke up a few days ago and decided I was done with needing to get away and now I'm here."

"I'm so glad."

"I missed you." She steps close, winding her arms around his neck and leaning up to kiss him, and it's the best kiss he's ever had, he thinks. 

"I've been working all day," he warns her, well aware that he's covered in sweat and dust from the day's chores.

"I've been crammed in a plane or shuffling around some airport or another for the last twenty-four hours," she replies, kissing his jaw. "So I don't care. Come and shower with me."

Will doesn't need any more encouragement than that. If he was a younger man, he'd carry her upstairs, but he isn't, so it takes them a while to make their way up to the master bath because they can't keep their hands off each other. She turns on the shower and they peel off each other's clothes and she lets out a squeal when she ducks into the shower only to realize it isn't nearly warm enough; Will laughs and reaches around her to adjust the water temperature and she relaxes against him as the water warms her skin. 

"All I could think about for the whole flight was coming home to you," MacKenzie says, reaching up to work shampoo into his hair. Her fingernails scrape lightly against his scalp as her warm, slippery body slides against his. 

Will rinses the soap from his hair and steps behind her so he can return the favor, playing with her hair in a way that's honestly less about getting clean and more about having an excuse to touch her. "You were too far away," he says, and when she rinses the soap away she turns to kiss him, urgent and hungry, and he forgets about saying anything else. He pushes her against the shower wall and she braces a foot against the ledge that runs around the inside, opening herself to him; he takes the invitation, pressing inside her in one smooth motion. The angle isn't great and he knows they can't do this for long, but he doesn't give a shit. Neither does MacKenzie, apparently--she kisses him hard, rocking her hips against his, demanding everything he can give her. It's been so long for them that he comes dizzyingly quickly and brings her off with his fingers because neither of them want to wait the few seconds it would take to get out of the shower and do this more comfortably. Not yet, anyway. But when they stumble out of the shower and dry off, he can't stop touching her warm, still-damp skin, and he nudges her onto the bathroom counter, spreading her thighs wide and kneeling on the floor between them.

"But Will, your knees," she says, a protest that turns into a soft whine when he presses his mouth to her cunt. (His knees will have their revenge tomorrow, he's sure, but for now he doesn't give a damn.) MacKenzie braces a hand against the counter behind her, the other sliding into Will's hair as she pushes against his face. He slides two fingers inside her, pressing deeply as he works his tongue against her clit and this time, when she comes, Will has to half-catch her to keep her from falling off the counter. 

"Careful," he says, getting to his feet so he can ease her against him. God, he never wants to let her go. "C'mere." She presses her face against his chest and he strokes her still-damp hair.

"I'm going to stay for a while," MacKenzie says softly. "I don't know how long. I want to know what it's like to spend time with you when I don't have to think about leaving."

"You can stay as long as you want," Will says. As far as he's concerned, she can stay forever.

*****

Having both Emma and MacKenzie with him for the summer makes Will happier than he could ever have imagined. They fall into routines easily; Emma gets a waitressing job in town for the summer to earn some money of her own, and when she isn't working, she helps Will around the house and farm. MacKenzie wants to learn, too, and divides her time between letting Emma show her some of the basics of farm life and working on her book. 

Will's a little afraid that the day-to-day of living on a farm will bore MacKenzie. While he loves the quiet routine of farm life, he knows it's not for everyone. Sometimes they watch the news at night and Will wonders if she's missing her old life at ACN; then she turns off the tv and kisses him and he thinks maybe she's made peace with it. 

But he'll never know until he asks.

Will decides that it's time to suck it up and just _ask_. He's been keeping the ring he bought months ago safe in one of his dresser drawers; he puts it in his pocket and goes downstairs in time to see MacKenzie closing her laptop, finishing her morning's writing. "Come for a walk with me?" he asks.

MacKenzie slips on her shoes and they go outside together, walking along the path that eventually leads to the fields at the back edge of his property. "Whenever I'm away, I always forget how beautiful it is here," MacKenzie says, when they've gone far enough that they're out of sight of the house. This far out, only acres of green pasture and the far-off mountains are visible, and the sounds of traffic are replaced by the chirping of birds and the occasional _moo_ of a cow. It's kind of Will's idea of heaven.

"It's always going to be here for you," Will says. "No matter how much time you're away, or how far you go, it's always going to be here."

"I know," she says softly. 

Will's suddenly nervous. He thought it would be easy to just say, _will you marry me?_ , but it's a lot more complicated than just saying those four words. Maybe it's best to just be honest--to tell her what he's thinking and what he's afraid of and what he wants for both of them--so he stops in the middle of the path and takes the ring out of his pocket. 

"The day after the Genoa broadcast, I bought this for you," he says, holding out the ring. "I knew then if I asked you then it wouldn't be easy because there's a whole country between us, and then shit fell apart and I couldn't ask you and I just put it away to wait for a better time. You had a lot to think about and I didn't want to make it harder for you, so I still didn't ask." Her expression is mostly blank, and a little confused, and he's not sure what to make of that so he just keeps talking, praying he hasn't misjudged and made the wrong decision. He stops thinking about it and just lets words spill out of his mouth--and his heart--however they will. "I don't ever want to be apart from you again. If you want to live here, or you want to live somewhere else I'll sell the farm and go wherever you want to go because you _own_ me. These last few weeks you've been here where we've gone to bed every night and woke up together every morning? That's what I want. And I don't care what we have to do to make it happen. Because I love you. And will you marry me? That's--I guess that's what I'm getting at here--I'm asking you to marry me. And I really think you should say yes. But no matter what you say, I'm still going to love you, and I still want to be with you even if we only see each other a few times a year. No matter what you say, I will never stop--"

"Shhh." MacKenzie cuts him off, pressing her fingers to his lips. She's looking at him in a way that's brimming over with emotion, but Will can't tell just what that emotion is. A deep breath, a little smile, and her fingers slide from his lips to cup his cheek. "Yes," she murmurs, and her smile deepens enough to crinkle the corners of her eyes in the way he loves so much. "I'm saying yes."

"You're saying yes?"

MacKenzie laughs softly, a little tender. "Yes," she says, in the tone that implies _yes, you idiot, why would I say anything else?_

"Thank God." 

Will eases her close for a kiss and she pulls at his shirt, tugging him closer; it's only when he reaches up to slide his fingers into her hair that they both realize he's still holding the ring. MacKenzie doesn't pull her mouth away, but keeps kissing him while she reaches for his hand, curling her fingers around his hand and the ring he's holding. "I love you," he murmurs against her mouth. 

"I know," she says softly. "I love you too." She glances at their joined hands and Will slides the ring onto her finger--he's afraid it won't fit, but it goes over her knuckle just easily enough and he breathes a sigh of relief. "It's beautiful." She turns her hand a little this way and that, so the small diamond sparkles in the bright summer sun. "We're really going to do this," she adds, laughing softly. "Oh my God, we really are."

"Yes, we are." Will feels warm and content but nervous and shivery all at once; he doesn't think he's been this excited since the day Emma was born, and he doesn't think he'll come off this high for a week at least. And he wants the whole world to know about it. "We're getting _married_!" he shouts across the field, as MacKenzie dissolves into giggles. The cows that had been lurking near the fence out of curiosity when they walked up trot off when he starts yelling, but he ignores them. " _I love this woman and we're getting married!_ "

"Shh, you idiot," she says, tugging at his arm and laughing. "The cows don't care. But your daughter will. Let's go tell her."

They hold hands all the way back to the house, taking their time--it's not that Will doesn't want to tell Emma about the engagement, because he does; he just wants a few minutes where this news belongs to him and MacKenzie (well, him, MacKenzie, and the fifty something head of cattle he scared away with his shouting), so he doesn't exactly hurry back. But once they're home again, he opens the front door and shouts, "Emma! Come downstairs for a minute!"

"I'm right here," Emma says, popping up from lying on the couch. "God, why are you yelling? What's wrong?"

"Not a damn thing," Will says happily. "Just wanted to tell you something." He looks at MacKenzie, who grins and holds out her hand so that Emma can see the ring.

Emma blinks in surprise and leans over the couch to grab MacKenzie's hand. "Oh my God, are you serious?" She looks from MacKenzie to Will, her expression changing from a startled stare to a broad grin. "You're really getting married?"

"Yes, we are," Will and MacKenzie say at once, and the shriek Emma lets out is ear-splitting. Will's not entirely sure he's ever heard Emma make a sound like that before (it's actually kind of frightening).

"Oh my God! Finally!" She clambers off the couch and attacks them both, yanking them into a hug. "I wanted this forever, and I didn't think you ever--God, you finally did it." She squeals again, but when she pulls away, she looks like she's about to cry. 

"Emma?" Will asks. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just--we're gonna be a family," she says, and scrunches up her face in the way she does when she's trying not to be emotional. 

"Oh, Emma, honey," MacKenzie says. She's making the same face Emma's making, only she's a lot less successful at the not-being-emotional part. "We were already a family. I love your father dearly, and I love you, too. This will just make it official."

Now it's Will's turn to make the face. Because no matter how happy he is right now, he's not crying in front of them.

(Too late.)


	15. Epilogue

Getting married a second time is in some ways scarier than getting married the first time. 

The first time, you really don't have a fucking clue what you're getting into, so it all seems easy. Getting married the first time is an ideal that hasn't yet been dragged down by the everyday drudgery of paying bills and changing diapers and cleaning the house and arguing over whose turn it is to do the dishes. Getting married the first time means you really don't know what _till death do us part_ or _for richer, for poorer_ or _in sickness and in health_ really means. You say the words because it's the magic ritual for joining your lives together, and you think that the time you'll have to think about that shit, the really _hard_ shit, is a long way off and hey, it's a party, so let's have champagne.

But the second time, you know.

At least that's what Will's thinking as he looks in the mirror to straighten his tie for the tenth time in the last hour. The first time he did this, he hadn't really known what he was getting into. All he knew was that he loved Claire and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. The rest of that shit he didn't figure out till later. He wishes he'd had a better idea of what he was getting into--his parents' marriage hadn't been any kind of model for how he wanted to be with a partner--because by the time he'd figured it out, it was time for the _sickness and health_ and _till death do us part_ parts and he felt like he wasted so much time just figuring out how to be a decent adult, much less a decent husband and father.

Now he's doing this again. And he realizes that even though this time he gets what those words really _mean_ , it doesn't guarantee he's going to be good at this, because every relationship is different, every marriage is different, and adding one person plus one person equals a lot more than two.

There's a knock at the door and Emma pokes her head in, beaming. "Okay, good, you're still here," she teases, closing the door behind her. "I wanted to make sure you didn't run away or something."

"I'm not running away," Will grumbles, but he can't be mad at his daughter when she's bubbling over with happiness (normally, Emma doesn't _bubble over_ with anything). "How's MacKenzie?"

"Beautiful," Emma says. "You're going to die when you see her. God, your tie is a mess. How did you get to be fifty-something years old and not know how to tie a tie? Come here." She tugs his tie loose and whips it into an expert knot. "There. That's better."

"I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Good think you're going to have MacKenzie here with you, so you won't have to fend for yourself." She leans up to kiss his cheek before he can think of a suitable comeback. "I love you, Daddy. Don't do anything stupid."

"Love you too, kiddo. I guess I should get out there, yeah? It's about that time?"

"Pretty close. You should go."

They've kept the wedding simple. Will would have been fine with just going to the courthouse, but MacKenzie wanted a small ceremony, mostly so she could invite her family and have them get to know Will, and he couldn't argue with that. They decided to have both the ceremony and reception here at the farm, and so far the early fall weather is cooperating--sunny and mildly warm in a way that will turn chilly once the sun sets. A few rows of chairs for family and friends are set a little way away from the tables set up for the reception and mark off the area for the ceremony in the shadow of a red-painted barn (the extent of Will's contribution to the wedding planning was repainting said barn, which was due for a new paint job anyway).

When he sees MacKenzie make her way through the few rows of guests to begin the ceremony, he's stunned at how beautiful she is in her simple ivory dress. He's never had the chance to see her _really_ dressed up, and now that he has, it's a distinct possibility that the next little breeze will just tip him over. She seems to realize the effect she has on him, and when she joins him in front of the minister and takes his hand, there's a smirky little smile playing at the corners of her mouth that makes him want to kiss her.

He waits for that, of course, until they've said the words and given the rings--Emma, as their sole attendant, kept both rings safe until the right moment--and then they're _Mr. and Mrs. McAvoy_ and MacKenzie laughs a little when he kisses her. It's happiness and nervousness, relief and excitement.

And it's the rest of their lives.

*****

They spend their honeymoon at a small resort in Maui. Will has never been to Hawaii, and though MacKenzie, as a diplomat's daughter and a journalist, has been to a great many places, she's never been to Hawaii either, so this is something new for both of them. Will likes that they're going somewhere new together. It seems fitting to start their new life together doing something neither of them has done before.

Their connecting flight is severely delayed due to mechanical problems, which means they get to the hotel so late at night that they are too tired to do anything except peel off their clothes and fall into bed in an exhausted stupor without even bothering to unpack. In the morning, Will's the first to wake, early in the morning, just at sunrise. They hadn't bothered to pull the curtains closed the night before, and the soft light through the window wakes him. It's only then that he notices that there were flower petals scattered across the bed for them the night before. A pale pink one is stuck to MacKenzie's cheek. He brushes it away and she stirs, sighing softly.

"Too early to get up," she murmurs.

"Wasn't planning on getting up," he says softly.

She opens her eyes and smiles at him, stretching a little. The movement pulls the sheet lower, just below her soft, full breasts. "Well, no," she says, voice husky with the remnants of sleep. 

"Then we'll stay in bed, Mrs. McAvoy." Will traces his finger across her cheek and along her lower lip, and for a moment he's struck stupid by how beautiful she is--not in the same way she was beautiful at their wedding, although she took his words away then, too, but in the way that her hair is tangled from sleep and her eyes are still soft and not-quite-awake and everything about the way she's curled against him in bed expresses complete contentment. _That_ kind of beautiful, the everyday kind of beautiful.

"Mrs. McAvoy. I like the sound of that." She drags her fingers across his chest, coming up with a crushed flower petal that she flicks away. "God these are everywhere," she laughs, picking another out of his hair. He's sure that they were beautiful last night, though they're all crushed now from being slept on; still, their soft fragrance still lingers and it feels a little decadent.

"I'll be picking the damn things out of my ass for weeks."

"An amusing mental image," she teases, leaning in to kiss him. 

It's lazy and sweet and Will just enjoys indulging in it for a little while. Then MacKenzie scrapes her fingernails across his chest and he pushes his fingers beneath her thin, silky panties; she sighs and presses against his hand with a soft _please, Will_. She's warm and slippery and his fingers slide easily against her, but the angle's not quite right and he knows it so he tips her onto her back and slides off her underwear so he can do this right.

He's never been more aroused by her than he is right now, as she leans back against the pile of white pillows with her thighs open to him, the soft morning sunlight bathing her skin in a warm glow. He takes his time placing warm, open mouthed kisses all over her skin and when he kisses the crease where her hip and thigh meet she huffs in impatience and pushes her hips up against his face. In response, he braces his arms against her hips and thighs, pressing her body against the bed. She makes a frustrated little sound at that, but her fingers slide into his hair tenderly, encouraging him, even as he takes his time and avoids touching her clit until she's digging her heels into the mattress in frustration, and it's only then that he gives her what she wants, using fingers and tongue to bring her closer and closer to climax without _quite_ getting there. 

"Will, I swear to God," she says, panting a little, and her fingers curl in his hair.

"Hm?" He feigns innocence and laughs softly, tracing lightly around her clit with the tip of his tongue. She whines and tries to push herself against his face, but he doesn't give her much room and her whine deepens into something like a groan.

"I need--" she begins, and breaks off when Will shifts his weight and slides two fingers into her, pressing just deep enough to make her sigh, low and soft, a little _oh_ of contentment, and push her thighs a little wider, opening herself more to him. There's nothing Will loves more about being with her than that moment when she relaxes into her own pleasure and lets it take her however it will. His tongue is light against her clit as he slides another finger into her and she rocks against his hand and mouth, an unconscious little movement of her pelvis that he knows means she's unbearably close. A little more of his hand, a little more of his tongue and it's just enough to push her over the edge with a soft whine and a deep shudder that shivers across her whole body. 

"I'm going to get you back," MacKenzie murmurs, when she can breathe again.

"Is that a threat?" Will teases.

"A promise," she assures him, gathering enough energy to pry her eyes open and give him a mischievous little glare. "When you least expect it. I'm getting you back."

"I hope so."

She's still languid and content, though, when he moves up to kiss her; he thinks she'll save her revenge for another day. For now, she slides her hand between them, wrapping her fingers around his dick with a few lazy, careful strokes in that easy way he loves. She guides him into her slowly and presses her hips up to take him completely inside her, and now it's Will who's making the sounds of pleasure and want. She presses up to meet him with every thrust, wrapping her legs around him, urging deeper both with her body and with soft words in his ear and as always with her, he can't hold back, not for long. His orgasm is a slow build that seems to go on and on and leaves him breathless and a little shaky and as always, full of so much fucking _amazement_ that two people can come together like this and make each other feel so good.

"I love you," MacKenzie says, curling up against his chest when he eases off of her. 

Will slides his arms around her, holding her close. "I love you too, Mrs. McAvoy."

"I think you really enjoy saying that," she laughs, sliding her fingers through the hair on his chest. 

"I don't think I will ever _not_ enjoy saying it," he tells her.

"Good," she says. "Because I don't think I'll get tired of hearing it."

*****

They don't spend _all_ of their week in Hawaii in bed. A good portion of it, yes (it is their honeymoon, after all), mostly late nights and long, lazy mornings,but they do venture out to enjoy the island almost every day. They have picnics on the beach, visit local shopping spots, have dinner at a luau almost every night, and even go snorkling together, once someone from the hotel shows MacKenzie a chart indicating when jellyfish are most and least likely to be present in Hawaiian waters and convinces her that the chances of encountering a jellyfish are pretty low this week.

They spend the morning of their last full day in Hawaii on the beach. Will's not sure how MacKenzie's fair skin doesn't burn to a crisp in the sun, but he helps her apply a generous amount of sunblock and she seems to be okay, even if there is now a smattering of tiny freckles across her nose and cheeks that he finds completely irresistable. She lies in the sun on a large beach towel beside Will and after a while, he thinks she's fallen asleep.

Until her phone rings.

"You brought your _phone_ to the beach?" Will asks, passing her the beach bag so she can dig her phone out of it.

"Habit," she says, fishing for the phone. "Sorry…"

MacKenzie answers and after a few moments' conversation, gets up from the towel to walk a few steps away, back up toward the hotel--possibly to get a better signal, Will thinks, watching her long legs as she walks away. She's gone for more than a few minutes, which pulls at his curiosity, but he doesn't get up to follow her. She'll be back.

When she returns, she sits beside him on the towel again. There's a little bit of sand stuck to her knee and he reaches over to brush it away. "So, who called you in the middle of your honeymoon?" he asks.

MacKenzie turns her phone over in her hands for a moment before stowing it in the beach bag again. "An old friend back from the days when I used to work at CNN," she says, glancing up at him with her eyes wide with excitement. "She wants me to come in for an interview. A job interview."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the end of the fic! I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for reading, and a special thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos. I appreciate all of them, especially when I'm really discouraged with my writing. Thank you for going along with my crazy idea of farmer!Will and all that goes with him.
> 
> There will be a sequel, tentatively titled _Climb the Mountain, Swim the Shore_ , and I will be continuing with Emma's fic ([Lullaby of Birdland](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1195332)), as well. However, I won't get to start on the sequel until I've finished my dissertation proposal and passed my comps! Hopefully I will complete these things with flying colors and be back to working on fanfic soon.


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